Imperial Entanglements: Prologue
by PhillyCh3zSt3ak
Summary: When you build an empire as a semi-faceless, quasi-immortal being, you tend to break a few eggs to make it happen. The Emperor made the Empire possible, now he's going to expand it further. Some will join, others won't. Some will be hostile while others are cordial. Who ever said being an Emperor was going to be easy? A 3 part OOC, Empire Building fic. Other content notes within.
1. Part 1: The Beginning

**So you're probably asking, "what is this?" Well it's my first three-way crossover between** _ **Star Wars**_ **,** _ **Mass Effect**_ **, and** _ **Harry Potter**_ **. Well specifically for the first one is primarily the Old Republic/KOTOR timeline. This is primarily because this story is HEAVILY inspired by the ending of the story by Darth Marrs "Broken Chains" (** id: 7718942 **), note that I said inspired there. This is because in that story Harry is sent to the Imperial era just before the Rebellion takes foot and returns. I won't say more about the story because it's that damn good, seriously go check it out after reading this I mean I did provide the ID of the story for you. And he also just released a sequel so go check that out too. The other story that this idea is based off of is "To Break Thy Chains and Cycles" by WiseSilver (** id: 9389599 **).**

 **Before you list this as a clone or even a plagiarized work, that is not my intent. Yes, it will share SOME events, but only in the broadest sense. The rest will be original "PhillyCh3zSt3ak" ideas and plot points. This is the reason why I mention both of these stories now rather than later. This just prevents so much confusion that is so easily avoided ahead of time. Plus, replying to people that accuse me of plagiarism and asking if I got some idea from another person just gets annoying after a while. Don't get me wrong, I love talking with my readers but responding to the same question over and over again just gets annoying, and if Vaas from** _ **Far Cry 3**_ **has taught me anything, that's the definition of insanity. That being said I've got some stuff listed below.**

 **Emperor!Gray Force User!MOD!Harry – After Harry's return, he eventually becomes the head of his own empire, will be explained more in the story itself. In many of my SW-centric fics I usually don't do a Dark Side character because that's not me, so in this fic, Harry will be a character similar in philosophy to Revan post-Light Side ending of KOTOR.**

 **Mandalorian!Society – This was one of the ways to make this story stand out from the other one that I got the idea from in the first place.**

 **Disclaimer: I only own my laptop and my copy of MS Word. References to events or technologies from** _ **Star Wars: The Old Republic**_ **(or** _ **KOTOR**_ **) belongs to EA and Bioware (and Disney by extension for the ownership of** _ **Star Wars**_ **). Technologies from** _ **Star Wars**_ **belong to Disney.** _ **Mass Effect**_ **belongs also to EA and Bioware. And finally,** _ **Harry Potter**_ **belongs to JK Rowling, the Warner Brothers, and Scholastic Books. I am not making a single penny from this fic, though it would help with my bottom line and would allow me to do this for a living rather than actually working.**

XxXxXxX

"Talking."

'Thought.'

 **[ Optional music for ambiance ]**

" _Past dialogue."_

XxXxXxX

 _New London,_ _New_ _Mandalore (formerly Earth). Imperial Academy._ _March 2150._

New London, the heart of the Empire. Three buildings dominated the city's skyline of the supercity as both speeders and ground vehicles roamed: The Imperial Senate, the Imperial Academy, and the Emperor's palace. The Emperor's palace is a massive ziggurat-like complex that housed not only the Emperor himself, but his staffers, guards, elite military personnel ready to deploy on his command, and his Hands. While the first three can be easily explained just by their positions, the Hands, on the other hand, were persons strong in the Force that answered to him and him alone and were given the authority to be his voice and act on his behalf. They were trained from a young age but started their service in their late teens; when their usefulness was at an end they were retired and a younger Hand would take their place.

The Imperial Senate building was a massive hub able to hold several thousand people in attendance as well as two senators from each world they represented that their world nominated. While only the lower area was used, the Emperor commanded the builders to make it much larger to later accommodate more representatives in the future, after all, the Empire was constantly expanding to more worlds. It also helped when the descendants of cloned sentient species that brought them back from extinction also added to the Empire and its citizens.

Finally, there was the Imperial Academy. It was designed intentionally as two separate institutions, one mundane and one for users of the Force. Regardless of which side a student was assigned to, the instructors were the finest in all the Empire. Everyone on the mundane side were children of officers in the Navy, children of Mandalorian warriors personally recognized by the Emperor himself for their valiant service, and children of politicians. There was a very strict selection process that involved tests of intelligence and resourcefulness to think outside the box when presented with a problem they were unprepared for entirely. The other side was mainly comprised of those of various levels of Force sensitivity from the weak to frighteningly strong. While the mundane school had registrars and testers that made sure only the best made it into the Academy, only the Force division was hand selected by either the Emperor or his Hands. No one except for him and his Hands knew how or why sometimes he would allow someone who could be considered a backwater hick in over someone from a prestigious family, however no one dared question the Emperor for fear of death or being assigned a posting at the edge of the Empire where the only creature comforts were a shower once a week.

Today was a special day for one of the students in the Force-sensitive section, today in their history course they were presenting their midterm project on significant historical events. "Ms. Ashford, are you ready to present?" the instructor asked the ten-year-old girl.

The girl, a redhead, was dressed in the Academy's girls uniform of a navy blue jacket that had the insignia of the Empire on the left breast pocket, white button-up blouse, modest matching checkered skirt, white thigh high socks and black dress shoes; after all the Emperor wanted those who represented his Academy to be proper and set aside in appearance from other schools. She stood up after adjusting her ponytailed hair slightly, and walked with her datapad in hand to the front of the classroom.

The lights dimmed and the blinds covered the windows as she swiped to the right on her device. In the darkened room the hologram of the Emperor himself appeared on the holoprojector. "For my history report I decided to do it on the Rise of the Empire," she stated with a nervous demeanor that you would have to look closely to see. The Emperor in the image was dressed in his elegant, black robes he wore in Senate sessions or walking around in public. The cowl covered his mask hidden face that added a shadow that rendered most in his presence in awe. "The Emperor first left our planet May of 1996 during a raid on the then British Ministry of Magic to recover intelligence on the pseudo-Sith Voldemort. Before he or his allies could use this information he was blasted into an ancient artifact called the Veil of Death primarily because of its usage as a form of execution prior to the Dementor's Kiss, which was the reigning form of corporal punishment at the time. However, this supposed execution method was a conduit for a one-way wormhole that linked our planet to another inside another galaxy. For three years while the primitive Force users of the time tried to subjugate the mass population of non-Force users the Emperor apprenticed under the Sith Lord Vitiate.

"After the Sith Lord Vitiate was destroyed by the Gray Jedi Revan, who rejoined the Force once his body and soul rejoined, he scoured knowledge stored away in both the Jedi Temple and Sith tombs of Korriban on how to return to our home. Knowing that he would be heading into a fight he brought the first of the Order of the Imperial Knights as well as many Mandalorians he could hire to fight for him. Gathering those the Sith and Jedi didn't want because of beliefs for his new Order and his hired Mandalorians, he retrofitted a _Harrower_ -class dreadnought with old runic carvings along the hull of ancient Sith origin, he returned to our world to see it embroiled in war. The secretive, primitive Force users aligned with Voldemort had attempted to take over the world. They had nearly succeeded if it weren't for contingencies created that dictated succession of power; however, for most of the upper echelons of the military they all held uneasy alliances with each other since their elected leaders and their Cabinets were taken out in the initial strikes Voldemort's Death Eater forces initiated.

"On December 31, 1999, mere seconds to midnight of the new millennium, the Emperor slayed Voldemort and his followers during a ritual that would have killed everyone on the planet since they were considered 'undesirable' in exchange for virtually unlimited power and eternal life for their Master. While Voldemort was killed as well as his inner circle, some managed to escape. The Emperor, seen as a hero and savior of the human race, took control of the planet. This was the birth of the Infinite Empire.

"For the next five years he brought the rest of the stubborner contingencied government leaders under his command. While the normal populace was readily brought to the Emperor's side, the stauncher Force users were a different story. You see, there were three groups at the time of Voldemort's death, one that supported the Emperor and two that were against him: those that welcomed his rule, the Order of the Phoenix, and the Death Eaters. Those that wanted peace and order stood with the Emperor as he was the only one with enough power to control both the Force users and the rest of the planet and keep it from falling into anarchy; a mass majority of civilians, veterans, and those at the time called muggleborns and half-bloods made up this group.

"The Order of the Phoenix was originally created by Albus Dumbledore to combat the dark wizard Grindelwald, the magical ally of Hitler, during the Second World War in the mid-1940's. It continued to see use until the end of the war where it was shut down. It wouldn't see reactivation until the 1970's when Voldemort rose to power with his Death Eaters. They again went underground after November of 1981 when the spirit of Voldemort was kept alive through an evil ritual which saw his soul placed in containers to keep him anchored to this realm, though most of the world thought him dead. One of the largest criticisms made by historians is that the group was extremely ineffective as a counter-terror force for a reason that I'll mention next. They again resurfaced in late 1996 when our Emperor disappeared as the defense against Death Eaters, this time with those of teens added to their ranks, in defense. As I mentioned before the Order was extremely ineffective due to their philosophy pressed upon them by their leader, Albus Dumbledore, of capturing and imprisoning their enemies to 'redeem' them and give them a second chance." Many of the children sneered at that philosophy. "So while their enemies used abilities, called spells, to kill and maim members of the Order, the Order used non-lethal spells to knock them out, which would lead to more problems once their once knocked out enemies were awakened by their Death Eater allies. Historians comment and criticize that if the Order terminated Death Eaters during his initial rise, then Voldemort wouldn't have been resurrected in the first place. Once Voldemort had been terminated once and for all, the Order and most of their members save for a few, attempted to arrest and imprison the Emperor just because he killed a magical terrorist that had many Pureblood followers that the Emperor and his Knights killed during the attempted ritual. This arrest was sponsored by the fractured British Ministry of Magic's new Minister, Delores Umbridge. The ones that tried to arrest him were swiftly killed by the Mandalorian warriors who were currently with him. He then marched on the newly exposed Ministry building and terminated all who stood against him, but spared those who let him and his warriors through. In the end even the great Albus too-many-names Dumbledore fell at the hand of the Emperor and the so-called Minister was vented into space out of the dreadnought's air lock in magic suppressant shackles that they intended for him. Some say that there are still a few of the descendants of the Order members are out on a colony on the edge of the Empire conspiring to make an attempt on his life.

"The other faction that openly opposed him were the followers of the deceased Voldemort, the Death Eaters. These wastes of life believed they were more powerful than our Emperor and his forces. In early 2007 they attempted to kill him in his newly constructed palace penthouse, to which the superstructure of the rest of the palace had already been started to be constructed. They gathered as many of their followers as they could and mounted an assault on the partially constructed structure. While they were able to prevent the Emperor from using the Force through their magics, it did not matter as the Emperor cut them down one by one with his lightsabers. It is said that a few did escape by not attending the assault and they too look for an opportunity to strike at the Emperor once more.

"In 2008 humanity turned their sight to the stars. The first terraforming platforms were delivered by the Emperor's flagship in the orbits of Mars, Venus, and Ganymede. While habitable zones were created for settlement by colonists hundreds of thousands of probe droids were sent out to find habitable and resource filled planets to explore and claim as ours for the Empire," the girl then concluded her report, to which her classmates clapped politely.

XxXxXxX

 **[** **Emperor's Throne Room** **(Emperor's Theme)** **,** **John Williams** **]**

 _Imperial Palace, New Mandalore. 2010._

The Emperor stood looking out of the massive window that looked out over New London and his growing empire. Conquering the planet was an easy task in the grand scheme of things, after all the populace saw him as the hero that stopped a genocidal maniac; it made sense why Dwight D. Eisenhower became president shortly after the Second World War, people love heroes. Cars and other wheeled vehicles roamed the streets below, a few speeders owned upper echelons of society (though in less than ten years everyone would be able to afford them) flew in the newly designated skylanes, and a few fighters screamed by with their twin ion engines.

The door leading to the main hallway hissed open and the lighter footsteps of lightly armored female walked into the room then stopped at the bottom of the small staircase that leads to the window and subsequent high-backed throne. She knelt on one knee, waiting.

"What is thy bidding, my master?" she asked, her eyes downward.

The Emperor turned around and walked slowly towards her, walking down the stairs. "Rise, my friend," he said, gesturing for her to stand up. She noticed that his voice wasn't distorted by the mask he always wore. "Come." He led her to the center of his private audience chamber and used the Force to flick a switch, dimming the lights and lowering the blinds over the massive window. He tapped a few buttons on his gauntlet and above them was a map of the galaxy, dots of blue marked systems under control of his Empire. "The Office of Naval Intelligence has recently gained telemetry from probe droids sent deeper into this region," he tapped another button which highlighted and outlined the entire region in red. "Out of the forty total systems probes were sent into, thirty-nine of them came back with no intelligent life in them, it turns out we aren't the only sentient species in this galaxy."

"My lord, what do you mean exactly?" the woman asked.

"I am excluding the non-human species that accompanied me here. I mean a species native to this galaxy with the promise of more if estimations are correct."

"Estimations?"

He pressed a few more buttons on his gauntlet and the hologram zoomed in to the local star cluster. "Ten light years out the _Quickfire_ -class corvette in charge of relaying signals and data retrieval picked up distress signals originating from a planet called Rakhana. Further investigation revealed that they were pleading for help from a species and civilization called the hanar. According to records that the Intelligence team was able to slice from their servers, about ten years ago they were approached by a space-faring species called hanar that took three hundred and seventy-five thousand of their people that promised to send more help for their species, it's been a decade and these hanar have not kept their promise leaving close to ten billion beings to die 'landlocked', stranded on their dying planet."

"Genocide," the woman morosely stated. "And you wish to help them?"

He nodded, though one unfamiliar with the Emperor's body language would've had look closer than the woman would've had to. "Yes, though provisionally. This is where your family's diplomatic skills come into play."

"And what do you wish for me to negotiate with them?" she asked for clarification, though she could guess the answer already.

"Their integration into my Empire. They are a species on the brink of extinction; their food supplies are running lower each day forcing rationing on their people and hunger runs rampant, inflation has made even those who had respectable jobs are in the same situation that the average Joes of their society started off with, and they know that unless those hanar come back they'll die slowly. In this instance we have all the cards. Offer that in return for joining the Empire we will supply them with the means to produce their own food and to join or start new colony worlds for the Empire. I also wish to establish a shipyard in orbit to take advantage of the asteroid belt around the system."

"And should they refuse?"

"Offer vengeance on the hanar that abandoned them, by joining us they will have a chance when the time comes."

"And will that time come, Master?"

"Time is an ever flowing river where every event is plausible." He turned off the hologram and the lights and shades allowed light into the room once more. "Take the _Victory_ -class destroyer _Marilyn's Shield_."

"It will be done, my master," she bowed.

"And Daphne," the Emperor called as she turned to leave. "Do be sure to bring yourself back in once piece, I'd hate to lose one of my best Hands."

"As long as you don't disappear again like you did through the Veil, Potter," the blonde formerly known as the 'Ice Queen of Slytherin' playfully snarked back as the blast doors hissed open.

She left and the doors closed behind her. "You are letting her become too flippant," a woman stated as she walked out of the shadows holding a datapad, tapping away on some application with her stylus.

"Cassandra, I've explained this to you once before," he turned to see the fair skinned, raven-haired former Jedi, "when she swore her allegiance to me as my Hand she did so using a Wizard's Oath. She is incapable of disobeying anything contained within the oath she swore."

"So like a slave?" she queried carefully.

"No. She is free to retire from her position at any time, like everyone in my employ, however as my Hands embark on classified missions, details they've sworn to take to their graves along with any secrets they learn that they are not allowed to disclose without my permission." He saw the doubt in her eyes, he didn't even need the Force to see that. "How long have you known me?"

"Several years," she replied, looking up from her datapad.

He stood up, walking slowly to her, gently grabbing her chin and tilted it so they looked eye-to-eye. "And how many times could I have taken advantage of you, an enslaved Jedi, after Vitiate's men captured you and gave you to me as a slave to do as I wished?" he asked.

"Too many to count."

"And did I?"

"No, you didn't."

"And could I have?"

"You were within your rights to do so."

"And yet I didn't, and why?" he took a few steps away from the woman, his back turned to her. "Because I saw potential in you."

"From what I remember you needed an ally you could trust."

"That too, my old friend. That too," he said he stood in front of the window that looked out upon his city, remembering both the good and bad under his tutelage with the Sith and his 'employment', for the better lack of a word, with Vitiate.

XxXxXxX

 _Rakhana, edge of the planet's scanning range. Two days later._

A single _Victory_ -class destroyer dropped out of hyperspace just behind the planet's moon. Hours earlier the same destroyer met up with the frigate that forwarded the probe's data back to New Mandalore to get an updated situation report. This yielded data assimilation of the drell language into vocal translators. Prior to this the only concrete data were bids that were sliced out of the archive servers and a repeating message they insinuated an SOS signal; the former showed news reports of the jellyfish species taking under a half million of the drell away in colony ships and angry crowds later when the promised ships for the rest of them never came, it was only with a Rosetta stone-like program that translated their language into English and from there to Mando'a that a broader picture was formed. The planet, once inhabited by eleven billion people, had been culled by their own people to close to half of their population.

'This will work out swimmingly for us,' Daphne Greengrass, Hand of the Emperor, thought to herself as she looked through numerous intelligence reports on the terminal she was borrowing from a crew member in the crew pit. There technically wasn't a standard operating procedure on how to approach a civilization that existed in this galaxy, so they would be winging it to an extent. They would approach the planet from the moon at full sublight speeds and establish themselves in a high orbit, high enough that even someone with a hobbyist's telescope could see them but far enough to shoot down any munitions shot at them. They would then broadcast an audio/visual transmission formatted for two-dimensional screens, give words of greeting and peaceful intentions, and request a meeting with whoever was in charge, despite the chaos reigning below. If all went well they would add another system and species to the Empire.

"My Lady, we will be in position shortly," said the captain of _Marilyn's Shield_ from the upper area of the crew pit with a Gaelic accent.

She turned to see the redheaded woman roughly the same age as her standing at attention, waiting for her response. "Good, captain. Have a shuttle and fighter escort prepared to disembark."

"It's already been done, my Lady."

"Excellent," Daphne replied, pleased with the foresighted captain. She rose from the station, allowing the officer she commandeered it from to return to his duties, and stood to look out the forward viewport to see the planet growing closer. One thing she initially noticed was the highly industrialized structure of the planet that reminded her of the images shown to her of Taris after Malak had orbitally bombarded the city-wide planet to try and kill his former master, Revan. It was sad and slightly depressing after all, Earth could have looked like this centuries from now if it weren't for Potter.

The crew felt the forward maneuvering thrusters fire to place them in geosynchronous orbit above the old capital if records in the geological data their Intelligence teams sliced from their servers was correct. "We are ready when you are, my Lady," the captain stated.

The cameras wielded by modified probe droids floated patiently awaiting the command to record, the technicians already setting up translation programs to translate the transmission in real time. "Drell of Rakhana," the Emperor's Hand said authoritatively, "we, the Infinite Empire, mean you no harm and come in peace. We come to you as a species with a proposition, an invitation to join our glorious empire as equals. We can offer you many things in return for joining us, however they must be discussed with a representative of your people. We await your reply." She walked off camera and the transmission ended. "And now we wait."

XxXxXxX

 _Planet surface, Rakhana._

Hours after the transmission from the civilization that announced themselves as the Infinite Empire a group of military officials that held very loose grips of power in the regions they were responsible for met in a bunker once owned by the former political system that left with the hanar, and the moment the meeting began they all started to bicker.

"I say we reject their offer!" a male shouted.

"I agree!" another shouted. "The hanar fucked us over and now these... Imperials wish to do the same thing to us! Exploit our people to do their bidding!"

Arguing continued to fill the boardroom as three camps of thought ruled: for joining, against joining, and the few neutral parties. Finally, a single gunshot rang out. "Silence!" a female General shouted. Immediately every person in the room stopped their squabbling and turned to look at her. "Thank you. I say we hear their offer out." When some started to shout again she interrupted them, "I didn't say we accept them, but to hear them out. They could have easily taken us over with that one ship alone, and considering that they said they were an empire it is safe to assume that they have more of them ready to move wherever they wish. The fact they decided to communicate with us and offer is a place in their empire rather than invade is reassuring."

"What if they try to do something like those dishonorable hanar did?" one of her colleagues asked.

"Then we decline their offer and hope they don't invade," she replied bluntly.

XxXxXxX

 _Old Senate building, courtyard. Rakhana. Hours later._

A group of drell, the military remnant and their personal guard along with several thousand onlookers were gathered in front of the old Senate building where they had agreed to meet with this emissary of Infinite Empire and hear their offer. Standing further forward than her colleagues was the general that suggested they listen to said offer. They had elected her as their representative, primarily as if this went south they could blame her for any repercussions that might happen, ass covering at its finest.

They waited patiently for the shuttle that they would arrive in. They expected a blocky, small vessel just a little larger than one of the many drell ground vehicles that the hanar used; to their shock they saw a massive, in comparison, craft that looked like a nocturnal flying mammalian that was split in the middle to show the cockpit and twin cannons under it as well as two sets of twin cannons on the side of the craft. The ship kicked up massive amounts of dust as it landed, the leg joints on the landing gear squeaking only slightly, as if someone had recently greased the joints.

At the back and bottom of ship a ramp lowered with a hiss and extended so it fully reached the ground. Down it walked three individuals, two wearing helmets with T-shaped visors while also carrying rifle-type weapons. The one walking out in front of the two wore a hood that concealed their face, but they could tell it was an adult female due to the breasts and hips, the other two were indiscernible due to their armor. The female though looked unarmed except for the silver cylinder clipped to her waist. When she reached the bottom of the ramp she uttered a command to the two in an unknown language, to which they nodded and stood motionless.

The female continued alone and stopped within arm's reach of the general. They stared at each other, the general attempting not to show fear and the female back passively. Finally, the general spoke and extended her hand, "Greetings representative of the Infinite Empire. I am General Diathem Roth."

The female bowed respectfully in return replying, "I am Daphne Greengrass, Hand to the Emperor."

The general pulled her hand back and gestured to the building behind her as to cover up the cultural faux pas, "Please, let us go inside to discuss the offer you wish to present us."

"That will be unnecessary," the Hand said abruptly, holding her hand up to stop them. "The terms are quite simple: join us, or die."

Immediately one of the younger, hot-blooded generals to Roth's right pulled out a pistol and aimed it at the Hand. "I knew it!" he shouted. "They only want us as slaves!"

The Hand raised her hand, fingers relaxed and splayed, and the firearm was pulled from the military leader's hand and flew into Daphne's waiting hand. She then carelessly threw the pistol behind her. "You misunderstand me. I am speaking of your current social crisis," she replied while slowly walking around the group. "We both know that your planet lacks the resources to continue sustaining itself for much longer at its current rate. Within the next ten years you'll face a societal collapse that'll result in riots over food and basic necessities which will lead to further destabilization as your government attempts to ration out dwindling resources and finally absolute anarchy you can't control. Eventually your species will dwindle to the point of extinction as you are unable to spread to the stars, relegating yourselves to the footnotes of galactic history. We have the means to prevent such a travesty."

"And what would we have to agree to in order to receive these… means?" Roth asked carefully.

"Finally someone who's asking the right questions," Daphne said looking Roth in the eye. "In order to receive the means to save your world, you must join the Empire."

"And what would joining entail?"

"By joining the Empire you would be under the rule of the Emperor and the protection of our armed forces, planetary protection that you currently lack and we have plenty to spare. Your people would be required to add their skillset to benefit the Empire; your soldiers would join our armies, your best electronics warfare specialists joining our slicer units, your builders with our builders and engineers, and so on and so forth. We would build a military base and keep a garrison which would include your soldiers as well. We will build orbital elevators, defense platforms, and shipyards."

"But will my people be taken care of?"

"If you agree to join the Empire, they will be."

XxXxXxX

 _One day later, Rakhana._

 **[ The Emperor Arrives, John Williams ]**

Outside the same old government building stood lines of silver-gray armored soldiers with T-shaped visors with particle based weapons held at parade rest. They stood with one aisle between them with enough space that ten armored soldiers could stand shoulder to shoulder and march comfortably down it. On one end was the building, on the other was a _Fury_ -class Interceptor whose ramp had just lowered. In front of the lowered ramp were the Hand and several of the drell representatives, primarily General Roth.

Down the ramp walked eight red cloaked and armored guards that stood at attention at either side of the ramp's ending. The Hand knelt on one knee, eyes looking downward as she heard the slow, methodical walking of her Master. Finally, the Emperor emerged from the ship, followed by another red armored guard, this one whose head was uncovered showing her fair, pale features to the drell in attendance on the other side of the soldiers. She wore her long, raven hair in an elegant braid, her yellow eyes constantly scanning for threats. The representatives noted that this woman, along with the Emperor and the guards, all carried silver tubes on their belts.

While the red armored woman was dangerous looking and the Hand seemed like she could eliminate them before they would know what hit them, there was an almost primal fear of the very presence that the Emperor gave off, it wasn't like his wardrobe helped either. The male figure, as he wasn't like any drell female nor like the Hand or guard, was dressed in black robes and a hooded cloak; but what was the most disturbing was the mask. It covered his face and didn't show any emotion, any facial expression, any eye movement, it only had a black one-way visor at eye level.

The Emperor stood in front of his Hand and held out his hand. "Rise, my friend," he said, his vocal scrambler slightly distorting his voice. Daphne stood up and took the place at her Master's side, the other woman following close behind them as they walked towards the drell representatives. "You have done well."

"Thank you, Master," she replied. "They will comply with our demands in return for protection, food, and off-world opportunities."

"Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen it." The Emperor made his way to the waiting group of drell with his small entourage following him. "Today is a momentous occasion, the joining of two species to make an even greater Empire," he announced. "This day forth your species is now under the protection of the Infinite Empire. I see great, prosperous opportunities in the future for all of us."

XxXxXxX

 _June 2150. Triumph Under Fire, bridge._

The _Resurgent_ -class star destroyer cruised through hyperspace as those on board worked at their respective stations and the Emperor stared out into the 'blue'; the blue tunnel that a vessel of any size created as they flew through hyperspace that is. The last century had been quite quiet in the terms of Imperial affairs. The drell were accepted into the Empire as a society, though they did grumble about having to learn to read, write, and speak in Mando'a. As promised he built space elevators that ended in berths for civilian and warship departures and arrivals, of which the platforms doubled also as a defense platform making any invader think twice. The Empire helped the now space-worthy species found new colonies on worlds discovered by the Empire. Terraforming efforts were done on Rakhana to start to restore farmland for the drell that wished to remain on their home world would be able to sustain the remaining population. Of course, as he was the self-appointed emperor of an empire there were minor rebellions across the Empire. They primarily consisted of the remnant of Voldemort's followers, the remnant of Dumbledore's followers, and the Jade Court of vampires. What made the Jade Court differ from the members of the Red Court was that the Red Court drank blood, primarily donated blood by law, the Jade Court were a specific species that originated from China and ate the life-force from a living being and always drained their victims of life leaving them looking like a mummified corpse. It was even more horrifying to see them eat as a person aged from their current age to a leathery mummy in anywhere from a few minutes to a few seconds depending on the age and power of the vampire.

Of course, a few defected from time to time and in return for a sentence of house arrest rather than termination they would reveal the current coven's hiding place. There were at least seven known covens that were active all allied with the Jade Court.

Then there were pirates. They were the easiest to deal with in the short term by deploying destroyers and Interdictor cruisers along shipping lanes. This made them more tenacious, but easily defeatable. For the rest of the civilians in the Empire their lives were peaceful for the most part. There was a mandatory service law that required those from age eighteen would serve in the military with the choice of the Navy, Fighter Corps, or Infantry for a bare minimum of two years unless the person was in higher education courses, apprenticeships, or extenuating medical circumstances. They all needed to be ready, when the Reapers returned to the galaxy no one could afford to just lay down and die.

The fleet grew year after year and several new destroyers, like this one, along with several dreadnoughts were created and were prepared to deploy at any time. Then a month ago he felt a disturbance in the Force and sent a Prowler to investigate, what they found was short of astonishing. An entire species of engineer-minded beings forced into exile for centuries living among the stars because they created artificial intelligence and it rebelled. The slicers on board the Prowler had a tougher time getting into their Migrant Fleet's databases, but once they did they found out that this species, called the quarian, had been homeless since the late 1800's and over the centuries had been trying to get this Council to approve them a new home world they could rebuild on. They didn't expect any military action or assistance to reclaim their home world, but they hoped that the Council would at least allow them to colonize another world instead; but this hope and trust was betrayed and not only was their embassy removed from this Council's Citadel, but the quarians were shunned for experimenting and learning. For centuries they roamed systems in their makeshift fleet of colony ships until they were 'evicted' by corporations or other member races of the Council and the cycle would begin anew. They were able to keep their ships running by jury-rigging parts from other species to keep them running, which was damn impressive. The only current true weakness their species has is their extremely weak immune systems; even attempting to procreate brings the risk of contracting a cold or even worse that could kill the potential mother well before they could produce a child therefore reducing their numbers further.

Where this Council saw shunning, shame, and punishment upon the quarian species, the Emperor saw opportunity. After all this was a species that was able to learn quickly how to use technology and implement it in their own ships, they built advanced robotics in the past, and sterile environments free of any bacteria, viruses, and germs. The Council were fools to let such a powerful resource go to waste all because their views differed. This was the reason why the almost three-kilometer long Star Destroyer was heading towards the system the Migrant Fleet was mooring in.

"My lord, we are one minute from reversion to real space," the captain reported coming up behind Harry.

"Good," Harry replied while turning around. "Once we reemerge send the message to their entire fleet and recall the Prowler."

"It will be done, my lord."

And just as the captain reported, a minute later they dropped out of hyperspace showing an entire flotilla of over fifty-thousand ships of varying sizes. Immediately whatever defense force they had immediately reacted to the absolutely massive warship and began to mobilize whatever forces they had. "Sir," a radar technician said, "they are launching fighters and three of their larger ships are on an intercept course."

"Let them do as they please, send the message," Harry ordered.

Then a male voice came over the comm network, **"Attention unidentified dreadnought, you will stand down and prepare to be-,"** the voice ordered before suddenly stopping. **"Uh... stand by, dreadnought."** As Harry had suspected the voice and the rest of his species were listening to the message that he had been reassured by his slicers would be broadcasted on every ship in the quarian flotilla.

 **"Members of the sovereign quarian people, I am the Emperor of the Infinite Empire and I come before you today not in a show of force, but to offer your species the offer of a lifetime that will have positive repercussions for generations to come. All that I ask is to come aboard and make my offer in person in front of your Admiralty and your people themselves. My vessel,** _ **Triumph Under Fire**_ **, will await your decision."** And with that, the transmission ended.

"And now we wait," Harry commented, folding his hands behind his back.

An hour passed before the comms lit up again. "Sir, a general broadcast from the centermost ship," the communications officer reported.

" **Attention vessel** _ **Triumph Under Fire**_ **, the Admiralty of the Quarian people have agreed to meet with a representative of your Infinite Empire to hear your offer,"** the same male voice from before said over the comms. **"One shuttle and an escort have been approved for transit through Flotilla territory. The representative and escort are to have sealed suits and helmets."**

Harry reached forward and activated the comms, "Acknowledged, Flotilla control. _Triumph Under Fire_ , out." Harry then turned to the captain of the ship, "Captain, prepare a shuttle and escort."

"It's already done, my lord," he replied with a bow.

Harry smiled behind his mask, "I knew there was a reason you were made the captain of this vessel, Captain Tiberius Snape. You have made your family proud."

"Thank you, my lord. Despite what my grandfather thought of you, my father, my siblings, and I praise your rule," the grandson of Harry's most hated childhood oppressor humbly replied.

Harry left the bridge and entered the turbolift. As the doors closed he reminisced about his hated childhood oppressor. To an extent Harry did feel sorry for Severus. After all he had a crush on his mother and his father, once he revealed the memories to Harry, was a royal douche in his teen years as was Sirius. After working with Sith for years you tend to learn about people's flaws and how some overcome or how some just disregard them for the sake of their own hubris. His father did grow out of his 'douche' phase when he hooked up with his mother, however, Sirius had remained a prankster up to the very end. While variety is the spice of life and pranking is fun, Sirius didn't take his final fight with his insane cousin seriously and died because he didn't take the fight with an insane, religiously dedicated to her master cousin seriously. Snape was still a pompous bastard who was beyond condescending, however it was hard to override the programming that had been planted in his mind by the manipulative Old Goat.

Harry remembered the first Imperial Senate session that was held after the moon, Mars, and Venus had colonies established and senators had been elected for the colonies. Harry had been pitching his proposal for eliminating the threats to the public that certain groups of vampires and the remaining dementor nests. Snape had stood up and criticized Harry's proposal with gusto. The entire rotunda had been so silent that the only thing making sound were the repulsorlift platforms and holocams, they had been expecting that their Emperor was going to kill the man. However, instead of Harry roasting the man alive where he stood with Force Lightning Harry actually acknowledged his concerns. While Snape had programming that he fought every time that he came into contact with Harry, he was a good advisor. Now he was currently retired on one of the Jovian moons.

The doors opened to reveal the expansive hangar. Waiting for him was a shuttle with a lowered boarding ramp as well as his captain of the guard waiting for him at the bottom of it. She bowed as he approached. "Lilith," he acknowledged her.

"My lord, I reiterate my suggestion from earlier that you send an ambassador in your place. There are too many unknowns about these people," she calmly stated.

He felt her unrest through the Force. She had been like this every since he felt the tremor that brought him here in the first place. "I am always at risk, remember the botched assassination attempt on my life by the Followers of the Light?"

She remembered back to when only the penthouse suite and main audience chamber were built on the palace. An assassin from the Followers of the Light, a group that believed in the ideals, and lies, that Dumbledore preached; the beliefs that everything that was Light was Good while anything that was Dark or Gray was Evil and anything that they didn't understand was Dark and therefore Evil. It was no wonder that the British wizarding society was so stagnant and on the verge of collapse. They had used the chaos of the construction crews and those seeking an audience with the Emperor to avoid detection from security forces and walked directly into his audience chamber where they tried to kill him with the Killing Curse for the 'Greater Good'. However, they did not take into consideration his lightsaber. He had deflected the curse into a wall before killing the man where he stood with a storm of Force Lightning. When Harry was done with the assassin he resembled a luau gone bad.

"I have not forgotten," she replied.

"And the attempted bombing committed by the Pureblood Brotherhood?" Harry asked.

The Pureblood Brotherhood was similar in agenda to the Followers of the Light: they wished and worked towards the death of the Emperor as well as to resurrect their long-dead leader Voldemort. They used whatever spells, hexes, and curses they wished. They especially abused and spammed what were the once called Unforgivable curses. Their philosophy was that of what was developed by Gellert Grindelwald prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, or the First Blood War as it was known to wizardkind, and was adopted by Thomas Riddle as his platform during his rise to power. His followers had constructed a magic/Force based explosive and planted it inside of a shuttle that they placed on a collision course with a new warship that the Emperor had been attending the commission of. It was safe to say that the crew of the _Nostromo_ got a live weapons test much quicker than they expected.

"They decided to give a Bond villain-style monologue instead of just ramming the shuttle into the new Destroyer while they were undetected," Lily replied.

"And they were hunted down until all but those that managed to be away from their hideout were exterminated," Harry finished. "So do you not think that if these quarians did, in fact, ambush me to hold me hostage they would either be exterminated by me personally or by the ship?"

"No, my Emperor, but that doesn't mean that I do not worry about your safety."

Harry reached forward and cupped her chin affectionately, rubbing her cheek with his thumb, "I wouldn't have it any other way, captain." He released her and started up the ramp, "Come, captain. You are to be my escort into the quarian Migrant Fleet."

She followed Harry up the ramp and took her place in a seat in the cockpit inside the old Sith Interceptor that Harry had kept and never retired for a different vessel. He had his most trusted mechanics work and maintain the vessel, after all, it was his personal vehicle. Without having to issue the command the Interceptor took off and left the hangar. Once they passed the main hangar a TIE fighter joined them and flanked their starboard side. The two ships flew through the Flotilla in an unspoken dance, darting between closing Flotilla ships and avoiding traffic from the Flotilla itself. Finally, they arrived at the largest ship in the fleet that housed the Admiralty meetings. The TIE sped off to regroup with the _Triumph_ while the Interceptor turned one hundred and eighty degrees to show the backside of the ship. The quarian vessel extended its docking umbilical and it sealed against the Emperor's ship.

The doors that separated the two civilizations opened with a hiss. Harry already had his helmet-mask sealed and Lily donned her Red Guard helmet and sealed it. Together the two walked through the few meter distance between the ships. They stood in front of a sealed door for a minute before it opened to them. A squad of quarians wielding rifles of a sort that looked like they folded when they were not in use. Their suits looked to be skintight, for the most part. There were a few females that were part of the team that he could obviously tell that they were due to their shape that was very similar to a human woman's. "This way to the decontamination chamber," a male red-clad quarian ordered.

"Might I ask why?" Harry calmly questioned, his own translator translating Mando'a into quarian.

"We don't know what germs and bacteria your species have come into contact with, we will not risk our leaders until proper steps are taken to ensure their, and the rest of the _Rayya_ 's crew's safety."

Lily's hand slowly found its way towards her lightsaber, but Harry cut her off before she could do something drastic. "Lilith, that will be unnecessary," Harry said without looking. "We will comply. Please, lead the way."

Not knowing how close the quarian came to death he replied, "This way."

They were lead to a tubular room that had several rails inside it. The quarian went up into the control room after the door sealed behind them. The quarian inside hit a button and the entire tube turned a purplish color as the rails lit up with UV lasers and lights that passed by them several times repeating the phrase, "Decontamination in progress."

Harry turned off his translator, slipping into pure Mando'a, "Captain, that was completely unneeded."

She followed suit and replied, "We still don't have any idea what these quarians are capable of."

"Captain, what did I tell you earlier?"

She bit her lip as she recited, "Unless they attack us, I have everything under control."

"And have they attacked us yet?"

"No, my lord, they haven't."

"Then do not attack unless I give the order to do so."

She bowed her head as she answered, "As you wish."

They both turned their translators back on as the room's UV blacklights turned off and the door on the other side opened. In the doorway, the red-dressed quarian from earlier was waiting for them. "This way," he commanded.

He led them through halls, doubling back several times to try and confuse them in the case that Harry and his companion were hostile and tried to assassinate their leaders. They passed by several corridors where several quarians looked out of their quarters, some with young children standing in the doorway. Several parents pulled their children back inside their quarters before closing their doors. Finally, they arrived at a large antechamber where eight more elegantly suited quarians stood behind podiums.

The quarian leading them stood at attention before the group and said, "Ladies and gentlemen of the Admiralty, I present the representative from the Infinite Empire."

The quarian stepped aside and Harry stepped forward. "Greetings, I am the Emperor of the Infinite Empire," Harry introduced himself.

The entire Admiralty was shocked, they didn't expect the Emperor of the Empire that had contacted them to come in person. "This is a surprise," one of the older male members said in shock.

"This is a unique case where it was imperative that I came to you myself, otherwise, I would have sent one of my Hands instead."

"A unique case?" another asked, a female this time.

"Indeed," Harry replied. "Your species is very unique."

"Unique?" the first admiral asked.

"Unique in the fact that you have been able to survive for almost two hundred years on second-hand ships, repairing them with whatever parts you find. The fact you created an entire synthetic race using a loophole inside of Citadel law. Few other species, including a few inside my own Empire, hold such a resourcefulness in technology that your species has shown."

They were shocked to hear that the Emperor praised them for creating the Geth. "Your words are flattering, however, you do know that what we did got our embassy on the Citadel expelled," another admiral said.

"Indeed. A short sighed reaction from a government that is stagnating."

"The Citadel is stagnating?" the third in the group asked.

"Indeed. Allow me to explain," Harry said before he began to pace. "Tell me, has the Citadel created anything that is the size of the _Resurgence_ -class Star Destroyer I arrived in?" A few of them thought internally and came up with the result that no one had created anything this large in recent galactic history. "And how did I arrive? I certainly did not use eezo based mass manipulation technology nor did my ship use the Mass Relay that you currently are monitoring. So the question becomes this: how did I arrive at your doorstep completely out of the blue?"

There was dead silence while the group thought of what the answer was until one spoke up. "You use a different branch of technology altogether," he answered.

"That is correct, admiral?"

"Rael'Zorah," he replied.

"But that's impossible!" a female shouted.

"Eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains, no matter how improbable, is the answer," Harry replied. "You didn't have to tell me for me to know that no one has created anything the size of my ship, and she isn't even the largest in my fleet that I have planned."

"There are larger ships?" the first asked.

"Oh yes," Harry replied with pride. "But I think we're getting a little off topic. The Citadel is stagnating technologically speaking. They only use eezo based technologies from a civilization long gone, haven't they thought for a moment there was a reason that they died off? Of course, they haven't. They haven't thought of using other technologies to supplement their civilizations or to improve life further for the people they represent. My spies have already infiltrated their supposedly private networks and have found damning evidence that the asari, the race thought to be the peacekeepers and forefront of democracy in the galaxy, have been hoarding technological advancements to one-up their so-called allies."

"How is this possible?" Zorah asked.

"They were quite cryptic in where it was all stored, but it was eluded to that it was stored in some ancient database they acquired centuries before they became a species capable of traveling the stars. Only a select few even know of its whereabouts let alone its existence."

"And what do you get out of this?" another female asked. "What do you want exactly?"

"I want you to join my Empire," Harry replied firmly.

"Why would we want to join you instead of being autonomous?"

"The fact that you're not autonomous, you are still subjected to the Citadel's laws even though you aren't technically part of it anymore. Your children going on their Pilgrimages are harassed for being homeless by others in Citadel Space, and those of you who don't have any children or have had any yet know that you too were subjected to the same mistreatment that no sentient species should be subjected to. By joining my empire you'll gain what you've lost: your dignity in the eyes of the public. In the eyes of those in my Empire you'd be seen as prodigy engineers, not 'suit-rats' as the public would like to demean you as. That, and I can give you something that no other government can, nor would the Citadel even wish for you to have, should you join."

"And that is?" Zorah asked.

"Your own planet to colonize," Harry replied.

And with that the room was silent, no one made a sound, not even those onlookers that were gathered to listen to the Emperor's proposition made a sound. "Y-you can do that?" the first admiral asked.

"In the system named Eridanus by my people, there are twelve planets that are currently uninhabited and are planned to be colonized within the next solar cycle of my home system. Many different colonists will be leaving from both my homeworld and several colonies in my home system. One of these planets can be yours and yours alone. Your people can intermingle with the other colonists on other colonies should you wish to."

"And we wouldn't be oppressed, criticized, or harassed?" the third, the female asked.

"You would be welcomed with open arms, your technological and engineering advancements making the Empire not only stronger, but yourselves as stronger by default."

"And where is this system?" another asked, this time from the gathered audience.

"I will not tell you unless you join, plus it is far away from any Mass Relay."

"Then how will we get there should we join?" an admiral asked.

"The technology we possess that allows us to travel outside the strict boundaries that the Relay Network has will be given to you, and installed by our engineers, once your Admiralty has agreed to completely break off ties with the Citadel and fully join the Infinite Empire." There were murmurs in the crowd. "And before I leave I give you one last promise. Join me, and the scientists inside my militaries will work tirelessly to allow you and the rest of your brethren to live without the need for environment suits so that the next generation will have the freedoms that you have wished so long for. Contact my ship when you have made your decision." And with that Harry turned around and headed towards his ship.

XxXxXxX

 _2155\. Emperor's Palace, exterior. Night._

Harry was entering a speeder in the palace's garage. Why? He felt a disturbance in the Force coming from the lower income housing sector. While unemployment was at an all-time low all around the Empire, there were those who genuinely fell on hard times because of either just unfortunate events or because of momentary drunken stupidness. Compulsive gamblers were usually the ones that lived here with their families. There were, of course, those who slipped through the cracks like children whose parents were addicts or got killed in the line of duty who found their way to this sector in order to live in decent housing for a relatively low price that one could afford working at minimum wage. He was sitting beside Lilith in the passenger seat as she piloted the speeder.

After a while of traveling on the main airway, after all, speeders became as expensive as cars had been back when he was a child, he had Lilith stop suddenly. Speeders traveling behind them had zipped around them as they resumed their travels. "There," Harry pointed to a block of buildings. The speeder landed on the street next to three apartment buildings that had a park in the middle of it. There were ground cars parked on the street as well. "Wait here," he ordered.

"I'm coming with you," Lily adamantly replied.

"I think I can handle myself, captain. Besides, you'll keep someone with the intention of sealing the speeder away," Harry said before heading down the alley that led to the park. When he entered the park he saw a group of children gathered in a circle that were chanting 'Fight! Fight!'. As he got closer he saw that a young girl, maybe five or six that had brown hair, green eyes, and pale skin, fighting off several boys and girls. She already had several bruises on her arms and face, more than likely from the fight. One boy tried to charge at her from the front with his fist pulled back. When he got in her face she slapped his fist away before delivering a roundhouse kick to the boy's abdomen causing him to fall to the ground in a heap.

Two more, this time, a boy and a girl, charged at her from both sides. The brunette sidestepped the first girl in a way that caused the two attackers to crash into each other. The brunette then kicked the back of the girl, causing the two to fall into a heap. Another boy joined into the brawl and distracted the brunette as the other three got up to attack her once more. The brunette punched the boy away before finding herself surrounded by four enemies. Instead of attacking them with her fists or feet, she surprised Harry by doing the unthinkable for her age. She jumped into the air and hovered there as she curled herself into a ball.

Harry could see the shimmer of Force energy given physical manifestation. 'A Repulse? At her age?' Harry thought in mental shock.

She then unleashed the stored energy with a roaring scream that only a child could have. As Harry had predicted it was a Force Repulse that pushed all her attackers into the crowd. Harry knew without checking that all four were knocked out. Had she had practice and a few more years to mature and train her abilities more she would have disintegrated her enemies at the epicenter of the Repulse.

The crowd lit up in cheers at the girl's victory. There a few kids handing over ration cards and credits over to another boy. 'They had been betting on the fight,' Harry noted. Then he noticed the boy's features, he was a carbon copy of the girl. 'So she has a brother.'

Harry let loose a loud but slow clap as he made his presence known to the children. The children parted for him as he walked forward through the crowd towards the girl. The children were muttering in shock, "The Emperor's here?"

Harry ignored them as he examined the girl. "That was a very impressive fight, young one," Harry said.

The girl blinked in shock before bowing at the waist. "Thank you, my lord," she replied humbly.

"Tell me, where did you learn to fight?"

"I taught myself in order to protect myself and my brother."

"An admirable feat. Did you make enough money for this month's rent and for food?" She looked at him in surprise. "Don't think that such an event wouldn't just gather those who want to see two children fight for no reason, some will capitalize on it. What if I told you that you never had to worry about food or shelter again?"

She was unsure where her Emperor was going with this. "What do you mean?"

"I want to take you as my apprentice," Harry replied.

The crowd was silent as they tried to comprehend the fact that the Emperor himself asked a girl off the street to be his apprentice, an honor usually reserved for those that showed exceptional prowess in the Force in the Imperial Academy. "My lord, I'm not worthy of such an honor," she humbly groveled.

"You show a potential in the Force that I haven't seen so far in this generation. I want to show you how to harness the power that you have. To do that you will attend the Imperial Academy and learn from the best instructors in the Empire."

"B-but what about my brother? I can't leave him here on the streets," she tried to make the excuse.

"Then he will attend the Academy as well, but you will be my apprentice," Harry replied. He did not want to lose this girl to someone in the ranks of the Brotherhood or the Followers.

"But what about the elitists?" she tried to make an excuse once more.

"What is your name?"

"Jane Shepard."

"What of your parents?"

Jane's eyes darkened, her presence in the Force was chilled in sadness. "Our father ran out on us, my mother died in a raid repelling the Followers a year ago."

"If they have an issue with my choice in apprentice then ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad."

The park was silent once more as they processed the information they had just absorbed. "I-I-?" she stuttered.

Harry then held out a hand to her. "Come, daughter, your room in the Imperial Palace awaits," Harry said warmly, under his mask he was smiling. Jane slowly and carefully reached up and took her now adoptive father's hand. He grabbed her hand, knowing that this wasn't some elaborate practical joke on her, her eyes started to leak out tears of joy. Harry led her back towards the speeder, her brother following close behind her.

As they reached the speeder, the Red Guard captain gave her boss a look of slight disapproval. They entered and the speeder took off and headed back towards the Palace. Harry then said, "Know that being my apprentice will be no easy task. Being the first Imperial Princess puts a large burden on you and many things will be expected of you with such a station." The captain gave Harry another look of 'Really?'

"I understand, father," Jane replied.

XxXxXxX

 _2160\. Councilor private chambers, Citadel tower._

Councilor Tevos of the Asari Republics, Councilor Valern of the Salarians, and Councilor Sparatus of the Turian Hierarchy sat in a private deliberation chamber set behind the actual Council hearing chamber where they heard issues from the rest of the associate races under the Citadel Charter. This is where they deliberated on matters that either the public would never know of, matters that the public would later become knowledgeable of, or of matters that needed to be deliberated further behind closed doors before a decision could be made. The matter today? Well that would be matters, with an s.

"So what is on the agenda for today?" Sparatus asked as he took a drink from his liquor filled tumbler.

"First of which being the hanar's inability to access the drell homeworld," Tevos replied.

"And why should we care that an associate race cannot access their client race's homeworld anymore? Didn't they suspect that the drell on Rakhana would die out in less than a century or two?"

"Yes, but that's not the reason for them bringing this to our attention instead of dealing with the problem themselves."

"It's because the Relay connecting to the system has been moved," Valern finished.

Sparatus spat out his drink in a classic spit take. He wiped the remainder of the drink from his chin with his sleeve. "Surely you jest," Sparatus said in disbelief.

"If it was a joke it wouldn't have been brought to us," Tevos replied.

"How would anyone even do that? They are gravitationally locked to whatever system they orbit around."

"Using technology of an unknown variety," Valern replied. "Somehow they disabled the Relay and disengaged the gravitational locking, then they transported the Relay using a variety of faster than light travel of which we have never seen before, then depositing and reactivating the gravitational lock and Relay in a completely uninhabitable system containing only gas giants."

"This is worrying."

"Indeed," Tevos agreed. "Whomever this race is, they're capable of feats our own respective races and those under the Charter are incapable of performing."

"And the other issue?" Valern asked.

"The last known quarian has disappeared from the face of the galaxy."

"Good," Sparatus replied harshly. "We don't need those AI creating suit-rats scurrying around on the Citadel and other respectable locations for their Pilgrimages."

"How did they disappear, exactly?" Tevos asked Valern, knowing that the STG might know something.

"Unknown," he replied. "A signal was sent out from the Migrant Fleet five years ago recalling all quarians to the Fleet. STG was sent in to investigate but each probe was destroyed immediately after exiting the Relay before it could capture any data. When the last known quarian outside of batarian held space headed back after completing her Pilgrimage, she was followed by a manned STG stealth frigate. This was the data they managed to transmit before it was destroyed." The salarian Councilor pushed a button on his omnitool and on the table a two-dimensional holographic image appeared. It showed a triangular shaped vessel that was easily larger than the _Destiny Ascension_ by a kilometer bare minimum in length. The ship the quarian had acquired flying into the lower hangar on the lower hangar on the ventral opening on the ship's exterior.

"That's…" Sparatus trailed.

"Massive," Tevos finished.

"Indeed," Valern agreed. "This was the only footage we got of the vessel before this happened." He then pressed an icon on this omnitool and the footage then showed the entire display was filled with a green light that only showed the outmost outlines of the image showing the inky blackness of space. "That was the last transmission that the frigate was able to send back before it was destroyed. A second vessel was sent through a day later and only found small bits of atomized and slagged debris, the triangular ship was nowhere to be found."

"An unknown ship belonging to an unknown species was able to easily find an STG stealth frigate and destroy it?" a shocked Tevos asked.

"Apparently so," Valern replied.

"We must find these allies of the quarians and punish them to the fullest extent of the law!" Sparatus shouted, his fist slamming on the table.

Tevos caught her own tumbler of Serrice Ice Brandy from tipping over as the base was more-so a glass meant for wine. "We can't."

"What do you mean 'we can't'?" Sparatus spat.

"The STG already dug into the transit records for that Relay and found no outgoing mass shadows." Sparatus took a breath to object before Valern held up his hand. "And before you suggest we search the neighboring systems within range, STG already did. There were no planets within range that housed a civilization large enough to produce what the STG found, let alone any life at all. Any terrestrial planets had too much background radiation, extreme heat, or extreme cold for a species to survive long enough to evolve into a spacefaring race."

"Then we do, hmm? Nothing?!"

"For now, yes."

"I agree with Councilor Valern," Tevos spoke up. "If this species is spacefaring and are assisting the quarians, then we can assume they will show up sooner or later. When that happens we will welcome them with open arms as an associate species of the Council with the promise of eventual membership. Once they sign the Charter we will levy charges against the ones responsible and demand reparations in the form of whatever FTL and weapons technology they possess. Then we will restrict their armies and navies so that we will remain the dominant forces in the galaxy."

"That is…" Sparatus trailed.

"Brilliant and devious," Valern finished.

"Why thank you," Tevos preened before taking a drink of her brandy.

"However, should you be wrong, I feel as though a storm will approach our way that will end civilization as we know it."

"What are you going on about?" Sparatus asked.

"It's just… a feeling that I can't shake that if we were to go to war with this other race it might be the end of the Citadel Council itself. And with that Valern left the room, the chilling feeling he felt was left lingering inside.

XxXxXxX

 _2167\. Emperor's Palace, Throne Room._

Harry sat on his throne in his aptly named throne room with steepled fingers and a content smile behind his mask. His now seventeen year old adopted daughter cum apprentice was standing at the bottom of the stairs that led up to his throne standing with her arms crossed behind her back, her brown hair in an elegant braid that hung over her shoulder. She had rose-red lipstick on and a dusting of makeup that made her look the part of a princess. She wore a cross between the robes that Knights and Red Guard wore in design and color but had the utility that the wardrobe that the Hands wore when in uniform. All of what she wore in the Palace was made by the greatest fashion designers and made with the best of materials. On her belt hung her maroon bladed lightsaber. The hilt was elegant in its design, yet that didn't limit its functionality. It had gold and platinum accents around the hilt, showing her status to passersby if they didn't already know who she was. She had adopted the roles and responsibilities expected of her as both an apprentice to the Emperor and a princess of an empire. The way she acted along the way she dressed made her the perfect role model for young girls to look up at as the Imperial Princess, she was both elegant and strong as a warrior. Harry had raised her well, after all, he knew what bad parenting looked like thanks to the Dursleys. Oh, how he enjoyed torturing them to death.

Next to Harry was Lilith "Lily" Moon, the captain of his Red Guard. She had changed very little over the last twelve years physically. She was dressed in her Red Guard captain's uniform which only had subtle differences between the standard Red Guard uniform and hers. The two primary differences being her shoulders bore the rank of captain, she did not wear a helmet which allowed her ponytailed hair to hang freely, and the detachable red cape that billowed behind her as she walked.

At the bottom of the stairs opposite stood Jane's twin brother, John. He had been apprenticed to Lily when he had shown an impressive ability as a warrior and was being trained as such in ranged weaponry and melee based weapons. While he could use the Force, he wasn't the prodigy that his sister was. She was already nearing the power level of a Master at the age of seventeen while John had only the level of a Knight at most. He was dressed in the standard Imperial Knight clothing which was similar to the Jedi robes but with an updated scheme designed for battle rather than meditation. He too had a lightsaber, but instead of his sister's hand and a half blade, his was of the crossguard variety that vented excess plasma out side vents; his blade's color was a golden yellow color.

Everything that Harry had planned had gone swimmingly over the last decade for the quarians. They had slowly started to recall all quarians on Pilgrimage, unfortunately, the signal took a while to get all over the galaxy, hence the five years. After the Migrant Fleet had been upgraded with new hyperdrives they were given the coordinates of Eridanus and began to colonize one of the planets. A single Destroyer was kept where the Flotilla once was to bring any wayward quarians back to their people on their new colony. Once they had been settled in enough they started volunteering for tests to hopefully cure themselves of their immune deficiency. The first few trials had been unsuccessful, but that didn't deter hopeful quarians and the biomedical scientists of the Empire.

After three years of failure a new retrovirus had been developed to carry the right triggers to jumpstart the quarian immune system. Tests were originally done once again on volunteers. When they didn't die from being exposed to the atmosphere the cure was administered to expecting mothers and their fetuses, newborns, and children before moving on to teenagers and adults young and old alike. Some, unfortunately, didn't react well to the cure and were forced to be inside sterile environments or environment suits for the rest of their lives, however, this was a very small minority of the recipients that got the cure and primarily affected older adults. Over the next six years the quarian community slowly began shedding their suits and donned clothing that they once had before the geth forced them off their world. Since they shared many physical body traits with humans, they dressed in similar styles that humans had which made fashion designers and fashion outlet businesses happy since they wouldn't have to create a line of abstract clothing, though they did have to for pants, gloves, and footwear as that was different compared to humans, drell, and other Imperial citizens.

The facial features of the quarians were very similar to human facial features, although they looked like the dark elves from the World of Warcraft games (that somehow had subscribers in an age of space exploration) with their elongated ears, blue-purple skin, and a shorter nose. Some would describe their features as cat-like. Their eyes were colored black for the most part with an iris whose color differed from quarian to quarian. They had seamlessly fit into the Empire's society without issue. Many found fields in electrical engineering, aerospace engineering, weapons engineering, various repair shops all over the Empire, and more recently: AI development for droids. While the Citadel looked down on AI development, the Empire already had them in the form of droids; quarians looked for ways to improve them. From the brief that Harry had read from the Imperial Institute of Advanced Intelligence Development teams were trying to find a way that would allow the intelligence inside a droid to transfer its core personality to another body. An interesting concept for combat oriented droids.

Right now in front of him was the quarian senator. She was dressed in formal business attire that senators usually dressed in. She had requested a private meeting with the Emperor to discuss something, but she hadn't really told his secretary what it was about. As per protocol, all onlookers were removed and that only left the senator, the twins, Lily, and Harry in the throne room.

"You requested a private audience with me," Harry stated.

The quarian bowed at the waist before standing upright once more. "Yes, and I thank you, my Emperor," she replied.

"What is it you wished to discuss without the prying eyes of the public?"

"My Emperor, please know that we have been wanting to bring this up ever since we joined the Empire, but our attention was turned to the immediate concern of helping our people settle in to not only being able to own land once more but also adapt to not having an enviro-suit anymore."

"No more platitudes, what is it that you require?" Harry politely ordered.

She thought for a moment before continuing with her request. "My Emperor, years before we joined the Empire we would send out many of our young people on Pilgrimages to find something that would benefit the Flotilla in one way, shape, or form. Of those that we sent out many would return, but a few wouldn't due to being mugged or by being stolen and forced into the slave trade; most of them managed and run by the Batarian Hegemony."

"And what do you know of these batarians?" Harry made sure to show his distaste with the batarians by spitting their species' name out in distaste.

The senator was shocked at the calmness that Harry responded to her with. He was a well-known anti-slavery advocate that personally broke up slaver rings on New Mandalore before sending his Hands to destroy them wherever they showed up in the colonies. He was known to eliminate them with extreme prejudice and always ordered the deaths of the heads of these rings. "They're a society of slavers living inside the Terminus Systems. The Citadel knows very little about them other than they have a caste system of government, of which slaves are at the bottom which also includes their species as well. Those that accidentally wander into their territories, which they do not claim with the Citadel to minimize confusion, are forced into slavery and are conditioned as they see fit in order to sell them."

"And why did the Citadel do nothing about this? Are they not against slavery inside their borders?"

"Only if it extends into their borders, and even then indentured servitude is considered in the case of settling debts with loaners and banks so long as the person signs a legally binding contract that can be sold to others. Asari on worlds like Noveria and Ilium are known to fool defaulting debtors and those looking for work into indentured servitude with contracts lasting decades."

Harry 'hmm'ed as he listened to the senator. In the Empire indentured servitude was a last resort for those in debt and only covered their debt until it was paid back at the standard minimum wage that was in effect for each colony or on New Mandalore itself. Again, it was a last resort. There were other options like consented conscription into the Imperial Army, Navy, and Fighter Corps and the Empire would then handle paying back what was owed from wages, paying back the debt in payments with an added interest rate that won't increase so long as the debtor paid each payment on time, or paying in a lump sum. However, with indentured servitude the contracts were non-transferrable.

The senator continued, "As for why they have done nothing, the batarians live inside the Terminus Systems and Citadel law does not apply to the Terminus Systems. The Terminus Systems are what would be considered humanity's Wild West, there are no laws and those that wish to escape the laws of the Citadel Council go out into these systems. The only law that is understood there is force. If the Citadel Council were to order war upon the batarians, they assume that the rest of the systems that include fleets of pirate and mercenary ships would fight them back in a bloody war that would accomplish nothing in the end."

"And you can confirm that there are many quarians being forced into forced servitude on the batarian homeworld?" Harry asked.

"Among other species they have come across wandering accidentally into their territory, yes."

"Very well." Harry then stood up. "Daughter, prepare the Fifth Fleet and invasion forces and head to the batarian homeworld. Show them the might of an Empire built upon honor and freedom," he ordered.

Jane turned around and bowed to her father. "It will be done, father," she replied elegantly.

"Apprentice Shepard." John perked up and turned around. "You are to accompany her."

"Yes, my Emperor," John replied as he bowed.

As both twins left the throne room with the senator that left Harry and Lily alone as the door sealed shut. "Is my private project complete?" Harry asked Lily.

"Except for a full weapons test and a run through the proving grounds she is ready for deployment," Lily replied.

"Contact the shipyards of Reach, let them know to be ready to launch at a moment's notice." She too bowed before leaving the throne room. There was work to be done and the Empire would expand once more.

XxXxXxX

 _Twenty hours later. Batarian homeworld, high orbit._

Twelve hours after they left Sol, the Fifth Fleet dropped out of hyperspace to view a rust-brown planet with a size that was smaller to New Mandalore's. The fleet consisted of twenty _Resurgent_ -class Destroyers, ten carriers, fifty _Victory_ -class Destroyers, and a dozen assault landers. Jane Shepard-Potter stood on the bridge of the flagship of this operation: the _Shadow of Intent_ , a _Resurgent_ -class Star Destroyer. The point of the operation was as follows: eliminate any orbiting hostile vessels, capture HVTs for interrogation, and commence the surface invasion. It was a simple task in the grand scheme of things, after all the weapons the majority of the races in the galaxy used were magnetic accelerator based projectile weapons. Sure, they were devastating on unshielded opponents and soft targets, but particle based turbolasers were much more powerful than those 'boomsticks', even if they were slower.

"Your grace, we're receiving a transmission from one of the larger 'dreadnought'-class ships," a communications officer reported.

"Put it on screen," Jane ordered.

On the main hologram projector was shown a two-dimensional image of a four-eyed humanoid that had a face only a mother could love. **"Attention transgressing vessels: you have entered the sovereign territory of the Batarian Hegemony. Surrender now and prepare to be boarded and enslaved for your transgressions,"** it said.

"Open a channel, make sure their entire planet can hear it," Jane ordered her crew. They pressed a few buttons on their consoles and nodded towards her when ready. "Attention ruling members of the Batarian Hegemony: we are the hand of the Infinite Empire. For too long your oppressive species has enslaved those you have found to be under you and those who had lost their way. And today that ends. Unlike the _**pathetic**_ Citadel Council that refuses to help their own races enslaved by you, we will not idly stand by and let this affront to the rights that all species have go unchecked. Surrender now and your punishment will be light, but should you not your punishment will be your immediate deaths."

" **Then your deaths will be most painful after decades of slavery,"** the batarian said on the other side before disconnecting.

Not for one second did Jane's stance falter. "Launch fighters and bombers. Cruisers, pick your targets and fire at will. Show them the might of the Infinite Empire!" Jane ordered.

 **To be continued…**

XxXxXxX

 **Codex: The Infinite Empire**  
 **While the Empire itself is only close to one hundred and fifty years old, it is said, but no one has truly confirmed, that the Emperor himself is close to one hundred and seventy years of age himself. Addressing the question on the naming of the Empire, the Emperor stated that the Empire had the capability to be massive with infinite possibilities. The Empire was officially formed on July 31, 2006 after he had unified all previously fractured governments under his rule.** **He is also referred to be some as Mandalore the Uniter. The Empire consists of the Sol system and its planets and moons, the Alpha Centauri system, Epsilon Eridani, Tau Ceti, Gliese 832, Gliese 876, Gliese 674, Lacaille 9352, Groombridge 34, Epsilon Indi, Eridanus, and Chi Ceti and their planets. Plans have been made to expand into other systems containing planets that hold no intelligent life and to offer membership in the Empire to those who are in the advent of spaceflight or pre-spaceflight levels of civilization. Each colonized planet elects a duo of senators to represent them in the Imperial Senate and reelects senators once every six years, sooner if the senator retires or is forced out of office.**

 **Codex: Imperial Knights**  
 **The Order of the Imperial Knights was created by the Emperor as an Order of peacekeepers as well as an order of well-versed warriors when called upon to do so. All Knights in training attend the Imperial Academy in the Knight program, a program specially designed for Force users. They are taught everything their non-Force wielding counterparts learn in the Academy along with lightsaber and Force skills. The Knights themselves are separated further, one of which is an organization not dissimilar to the Red Cross of old, willing to help all who request it, but able to wreak havoc when placed in a hostile situation. Knights are taught to use all aspects of the Force, both the Light and Dark sides and to embrace the Balance, a philosophy that takes the best of both the Jedi and Sith codes and combines it into a set of universal truths: "There is no Dark Side, nor a Light Side. There is only the Force. I will do what I must to keep the balance. There is no good without evil, but evil must not be allowed to flourish. There is passion, yet emotion. Serenity, yet peace. Chaos, yet order. Death, yet the Force." While not required, Knights are expected to know how to pilot various vessels and operate common technologies used in the Empire. Apprentices are taken by Knights and Masters when they usually reach their pre-teen years, however it does uncommonly happen to have a younger child or older child to be apprenticed earlier or later respectively. When the apprentice has learned all they can from their Master, they are allowed to take the Trials which if they pass they are knighted into the Order; however, should they fail they must** **wait** **a full year before attempting the Trials again to ensure they are fully prepared both mentally and physically. While extremely uncommon, the Emperor does occasionally take an apprentice, an honor most Initiates drool over the opportunity should it present itself. Knights wield both lightsabers as well as blasters out in the field.**

 **Codex: Hands of the Emperor**  
 **While a powerful man, the Emperor cannot be everywhere at once, hence the creation of the Hands. They act on his word alone and report and take orders directly from him. To refuse an order from a Hand is to refuse an order from the Emperor himself. Hands supersede all chains of civilian and military command if required to. Hands are carefully chosen by the Emperor himself and always are able to use the Force. It is commonplace for Hands to originally attend the Imperial Academy to begin their learning prior to the Emperor turning his attention to them. Once selected to become a potential Hand, they are given and are expected to adhere to a very strict diet and exercise regimen, be well read in various fields of study, master all weapons both projectile and melee, be able to use various Force abilities, be able to perform acts of espionage, be able to seduce a target for either information gathering or termination, and be able to expertly duel with a lightsaber. Potential Hands are apprenticed to current Hands about to retire from their service until their Master determines they are ready, once Masters determine that their apprentice is ready the apprentice begins their tenure as a Hand of the Emperor. Should they fail or quit their apprenticeship, they are sworn to secrecy by an Unbreakable Vow to protect the secrets gathered and learned while an apprentice of a Hand. It is unknown to the public by which specific criteria the Emperor chooses his Hands.**

 **Codex: Red Guard**  
 **The Red Guard are the elite of the elite from the Imperial Knights. Their intelligence, combat skills, and critical thinking under pressure are vetted by both former Hands and the Emperor himself. To be a member of the Red Guard means holding the Emperor's, and those around him, life in their hands. They are required before donning the red armor of the Guard to swear an unbreakable oath to protect the Emperor with their lives until they are released from their service. Members are also required to be excellent fighter pilots should they need to pilot several types of fighters and transports used by the Empire. All members of the Red Guard wield silver bladed lightsabers.**

 **Codex: Lilith Moon, The Loyal Hound**  
 **Lilith Moon is the Head of the Royal Red Guard and has been since its inception. She has the misnomer of "The Loyal Hound" due to her status as an Alpha Werewolf and has sworn her loyalty until death to her Master, the Emperor. Being an Alpha of her own pack she has magics that allow her to retain her youthful appearance and live an exponentially long life compared to her fellow weres and Force users. Her fair features throw potential threats off as she doesn't look threatening at all, but looks like arm-candy for the Emperor to parade around. However, there is a reason she is captain of the Red Guard. She is an accomplished blade duelist on par with the Emperor himself as well as a mastery of the Force on par with Masters and can hold her own in fights where she is outnumbered by three people with little trouble.**

 **Codex: Jane Shepard-Potter, The Imperial Princess**  
 **Jane Shepard is the adopted daughter of the Emperor and princess to the Empire and personal apprentice to the Emperor himself. She began with humble origins with her twin brother as the children of a mother who was in the Imperial Navy as part of a protection detail. With their mother's passing and their father running off well before then, they made their way to the low income housing that the Empire provides for those less fortunate. They made rent money as well as money for food by setting up fights where Jane would destroy her opposition. When she was the age of five she was discovered by the Emperor and was made his personal apprentice as well as the Emperor adopting her, making her Princess of the Empire. She holds this position with grace, authority, and power that not many others could have. She is incredibly talented and skilled in the use of the Force, using abilities that should be well outside her skill range making her an opponent to not be underestimated by any means. She has stated on record the reason for her hyphenated last name. The first is to honor her late mother in keeping her last name while now continuing the Potter name as her adoption allows her to.**

 **Codex: Mandalorian culture in the Empire**  
 **One of the dominant cultures in the Empire is Mandalorian. This is due to the mercenary forces the Emperor brought with him. After the creation of the Empire in 2006, in order to unify the Empire's people, the Mandalorian language was made the official language of the Empire. While old languages are used in the homes of their residents in their countries of origin by the older generations, everyone born from 2006 onwards knows Mando'a by heart. All of their armor is an updated scheme that the original Mandalorian warriors used that came with the Emperor. Their code of honor is also derived from the warriors, making those in the Imperial Navy and Army effective and lethal warriors.**

 **Codex: Eezo usage in the Empire**  
 **Eezo, or Element Zero, usage in the Empire is quite limited despite its usefulness. The primary reason for this is the Warning on Mars extracted from the Prothean archive. Uses are limited to personal anti-kinetic shields, usage in fighter mass reduction. The Emperor decreed that Eezo based technologies should not make up a mass majority of the tech market as to not allow the Reapers an advantage on the Empire.**

 **Codex: Magic in the Empire**  
 **As stated by several historians inside the Order of Imperial Knights over the years, both the force called "magic" and the Force are in fact the same thing, but different applications of the same energy that permeates all life. One of the big key differences are their users, the Knights depends on drawing the Force into themselves while mages draw it from themselves. One historian suggested that they did draw it from the universe like the Knights, but store it up for when they need to use it. Another key difference is that magic users, or at least the variant (see Witches of Dathomir) that originated on New Mandalore (Earth). Replication charms are in constant use to produce the materials necessary to make the ships that make up the Imperial Naval fleets. Those who specialize in replication charms are highly paid and are encouraged to work in the shipbuilding industry and to take on apprentices or students to pass on their knowledge to the next generation.**

XxXxXxX

 **Alright and that's chapter 1 of this total of 3 chapters for a pilot I'm doing. This pilot trilogy is what I've started as an idea for a romp through the ME trilogy with a society on Earth that is not only more powerful than the Citadel in terms of technology, but is also on par with power that the Reapers will try and keep while fighting a more technologically superior and unpredictable humanity. I don't know if I'll do the actual run through the trilogy or not, but I will finish this series of 3 chapters for the pilot. That much is certain.**

 **As you'll notice there's quite a bit of codex entries, that's a contingency that I've created in the case that I do the whole trilogy romp idea. Read them, it took me a while to come up with them. You'll also notice that I used a lot of ships from Star Wars, again this is going off the idea of a technologically superior Empire headed by Harry in comparison to the technologically stagnating Citadel. Plus, I sort of wanted to cut the quarians a break in giving them the freedom that they deserved in living outside their suits instead of being imprisoned inside them.**

 **Just for references sake the species that Harry has inside his Empire are: Humanity and its magical subhuman races (Veela, weres [cats, wolves, etc.], human-animal hybrids), twi'leks, Mandalorians (from Mandalore), goblins, drell, quarians, and zabrak. There are a few that I skipped over as his ship did contain many different species that came along with him back to his home galaxy. And before I get to my hint at next time's chapter: an omake/outtake for you guys that I thought was funny but didn't fit in with the narrative above. It does get into "lime" territory, but isn't that graphic at all.**

XxXxXxX

Outtake/Omake – "Explanin'"

 _2161\. 1am, Imperial Standard Time (UTC). Imperial Palace, Princess Jane's quarters._

Princess to the Empire, Jane Shepard-Potter wandered the halls of the sleeping quarters of the Imperial Palace, her bare feet 'pitter-pattering' on the clean black marble floor as she walked from her room to her father's suite on the north end of the palace that overlooked the River Thames. The reason she was wandering from her room to her father's? She had a vision while sleeping and her father told her to come to him immediately if she had a Force vision.

He had been very specific when explaining it during a teaching session a year ago. _"It feels as though it's like a dream, however, something feels off about it and you can't put your finger on it immediately. It feels real but unreal at the same time. There are three types of Force visions: past, present, and future. When you see into the past you can see events from angles that those who originally experienced them might have never seen. Take for example the JFK assassination. There are so many theories that exist that never got answered that if someone who was Force-sensitive were to have a Force vision of that day of the killer who struck the killing shot you would be able to then search out that evidence further. For visions of the present, it's stuff happening here and now. This is the type of vision that is associated with Battle Meditation as you can see everything about the battle even if you can't see it physically. The third type is the most dangerous as it can be misinterpreted in many ways bringing on the event that you intended to avoid in the first place."_

" _What do you mean, father?"_ Jane had asked.

" _Many years ago a prophecy was foretold about me by a very loony woman by the name of Sybil Trelawney when she was being interviewed by Albus Dumbledore for a job."_

" _The former leader of the Followers of the Light?"_

" _The very same Albus. She had a Force-induced vision of the future where she saw two children being born to parents that defied the Dark Lord three times beforehand that fit the prophecy a few months down the road. She then saw one of these children, their face and any defining features blacked out and fuzzy, defeating the one named Voldemort with a 'power that he knows not.' A very generic prophecy that could have happened years down the road without any context to them. But one man overheard part of this prophecy and brought it to his master. Voldemort then went to my parents home when I was fifteen months old and fulfilled the prophecy he overheard when he was defeated by a 'power he knew not' as my mother had performed a ritual that used her life as a catalyst to fuel it, allowing me to survive the Killing Curse. He would return fourteen years later only to be killed by me personally. Now that I have told you this tale, what have you learned?"_

The girl thought for a moment, putting her finger to her chin. _"To take prophecies and visions of the future into context, not taking them at face value but examining any deeper meaning embedded in them whether they be visual, audible, or Force clues before acting upon them."_

" _You have learned well, my apprentice. We must not dwell on visions of the future, but we also must not dismiss them. I think a concept from the long done manga series_ Naruto _fits here, 'look underneath the underneath.' Whenever you get a vision, do not fear bringing it to me because I am not only your master but your father as well."_

" _I understand, father."_

Jane remembered these words and promised that she would approach her father if she ever got a vision of the future. For the next four years she never received one, this until tonight happened. She had been enjoying a wonderful night's sleep when her mind was assaulted by images that she didn't understand. She woke up startled in a sweat. After she had calmed herself down she changed from her sweat stained sleepwear into spare workout clothes and walked to her father's room.

As she started to approach the doors to the room she started to hear some interesting things coming from inside the room. First of which was what sounded like the sound of wet hands clapping to her. As she actually came up to the door she put her ear next to it hearing a woman oddly saying, "Oh yes, deeper~! Ahn~! Yes! Play with my tits! Suck on my nipples! Ahn~!"

Curious, Jane used the Force to open the door just enough for her to look in and what she saw confused her further. On her father's bed was a naked woman who was bouncing on the bed on her knees as something looking like a thick rod slipped in between her legs whenever she came down. This woman had what looked like brown wolf ears on top of her head and a bushy brown tail continuing off of her tailbone that wagged happily as she bounced. There were a pair of hands coming from the bed touching the breasts of the woman.

"You love my tight wolfy pussy, don't you?" the woman asked huskily.

What shocked her next was the next person that spoke. "Of course I do," the man grunted as he pulled the woman closer to his chest as they began to kiss sloppily. Jane had noticed that it was her father replying to the woman. "Lily, I'm going to-!" he exclaimed as the woman now identified as her father's captain of the Red Guard increased her bouncing on top of her father.

"Me too!" Lily exclaimed. "Don't you dare pull out! Ahn~! Spill all your baby batter inside me~! Mark me as yours! Ahn~!" she screamed as her father held himself tight against Lily as they kissed sloppily once more.

"I love you, Lily," her father said before kissing Lily once more.

"I love you to-."

"Daddy?" Jane asked finally, the doors opened to reveal a very confused yet curious Jane.

"Shit!" Lily shouted in surprise. As she immediately rolled off of her father and covered herself up to her chest with the bedsheet while her father covered himself up to his waist.

"Jane! What are you doing here?" Harry asked as Lily began to cause her partial transformation to regress so she was a human once more.

Jane rubbed her eyes as if rubbing the sleep out of them. "I was going to tell you about a vision I had in my dreams but I started to hear what sounded like hands clapping coming from your room and saw-."

"Shit, she saw us," Lily said to Harry, knowing that Jane was more than likely going to describe their sex act to them.

"Daddy, what were you doing to Captain Lily?" Jane asked in a way that suggested that there was no way out of this.

Harry sighed and summoned two bathrobes, one for himself and one for Lily. She immediately rolled off the bed and put it on out of sight of the preteen and stood up, excusing herself to head to the washroom. "Jane, do know what happens when two people who aren't blood-related love each other?" Harry asked.

"They kiss?"

"Yes, that's part of it. You see when two people love each other very much they do things for each other like what you saw me and Lily doing."

"You mean bouncing on each other?"

"Sort of," Harry laughed. "What you saw me and Lily doing was what is called heterosexual intercourse where a man puts his bits into a woman's bits and they rub together until they feel good."

"But don't people who love each other get married?" Jane asked.

"They do," Harry replied, unsure where she was going with this.

"Then are you married to Lily?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"It's complicated with me being the Emperor and her being the captain of the guard."

Not knowing that Lily had just walked in Jane asked, "Then are you going to ask her to marry you soon?"

Lily burst out laughing and Harry lit up red in embarrassment. "Why don't you tell me about that vision you had?" Harry said, trying to change the conversation. It was going to be a long night.

XxXxXxX

 **Alright so that was it. Hopefully you liked it. I thought of the awkward humor that a parent would have to go through having their kid walk in on them while they were in the middle of having sex and having to explain what happened. Yeah, not something I want to look forward to for when I eventually do get married.**

 **Plus I also hint at the hidden relationship that Lily Moon and Harry have been having for a while behind closed doors and out of sight from the public. Is it a pairing? I don't know. Are they two consenting adults letting off steam in a, no pun intended, pleasurable way? Yes. I should also mention that the scene was inspired by a creation by FFN user megamatt09 called "The Breeding Ground"** **(** id: 11578938 **) where basically it's a series of smutty one-shots. The idea is that Lily is a werewolf that is given a charmed piece of jewelry that allows her to have a sort of halfway transformation (** see chapter 12: Under the Full Moon **). I totally liked that idea and took it with some liberties thrown in. If you want a clearer idea of what I'm talking about, google image search "Lily-chan Lost Pause" and if you get a wolf-girl dressed like a mechanic, that's the general image I was going for. And if you know who Noble is and what his channel "Lost Pause" is about, kudos to you. There's a few images out there describing the levels of anthropormorphism, level 0 being human and level 5 being completely animal. If anything Lily in this scene would have been level 1: mostly human with some traits, i.e. RWBY Faunus. Again, hopefully you guys liked it.**

 **Let me know what you thought. If you guys enjoyed this, why not follow me and see where it goes. Or if you really enjoyed it, why not favorite it as well, just to tell me that you really like it. Please, no flamers as you will be ignored and I will screencap your flaming replies so I can show them off to my buddy and we'll laugh at you. I already did it in one of my other fics, too bad he lost the screencap.**

 **Next time: Jane leads the invasion on the batarians with her brother and Harry prepares for his confrontation with the Citadel.**


	2. Part 2: The Great Reveal

**Ho. Ly. Shit. I cannot believe how much this story has been liked by you guys over the short time it's been up. No. Really. At the time of this introduction's writing the numbers of this fic are as follows: 639 followers, 473 favorites, over 13,700 views, and this was added to 11 communities. I stand by my opening statement of "holy shit" because not many of my story concepts are accepted this quickly by so many people with the release of only one chapter. Now before I get to this next installment, there are a few things that I need to clear up.**

 **First and foremost this entire story is a 3 part prologue story. There is a reason for this. This is a prologue setting up the setting of the universe this story is going on in as well as setting up future characters and settings. This will be what forms an eventual three to four series of stories that will mostly involve Shepard with in the background Harry and his closest allies playing politics in getting all the races on his side. Like the description says, some will join, others cordial, etc. What most people do is have one civilization, in this case, my version of humanity, steamroll all over the Council races and every other one that stands in their way. The thing is, everyone and their mother knows that the Citadel Council is corrupt as hell and few people would need much convincing to join Harry and his Empire. Prime examples? The quarians, krogan, every race that was once a slave as part of the batarian slave trade, and so on. But you get my point. This is my take on this specific genre. It's my way of saying that there's more than one way to do things.**

 **Now if you're a person who's been following me and my stories then you should know what's up next: review replies. Now if you're new here, I have an outline as to how I reply to reviews over on my profile.**

 **I'm going to summarize this here now and do individual replies to reviews after the notes of the chapter because there's a lot of them. I want to thank everyone who wrote a review giving me their thoughts on this story. To those of you that don't like what I'm doing, well I enjoy seeing just how salty you guys are. Mmmm, delicious salt. I know that this is but a small vocal minority of those guys but some of these guys are super salty to the point they could help make the snow in Canada melt. Yay analogies!**

 **And before we get into the story, at the end I do have a few more things to say about the future of this story, but I think this is enough right now to get you guys in the know. So please make sure to read both this and the endnote. Thank you.**

 **Disclaimer: You should know by now I only own my laptop and my copy of MS Word, see the first chapter for the full disclaimer.**

XxXxXxX

"Speaking."

" **Transmission speak."**

 **[ Suggested audio ]**

XxXxXxX

 _Khar'shan, orbit. Dreadnaught "Sky of Khar'shan", bridge. Ten minutes before Imperial arrival._

Captain Pemis Pramsoros (1) was a simple kind of man with a larger than life job. He had command of the very first dreadnought ever produced by the batarians even though it was hundreds of years old. Why would an interstellar government use a centuries old ship? Pride was part of it. There was also the fact that they kept upgrading it time and time again to be able to withstand the current generation of weaponry. That is why it was considered the 'Pride of Khar'shan.' While the _Sky of Khar'shan_ had loads of prestige to its name, he had only the honor of serving upon it. He was a man from a family in the general middle caste, the caste that allowed those that were citizens inside of it to become officers in any of the military branches. Below that was the general lower caste, who usually became grunts or did manual labor, and below them was the general slave caste which was self explanatory. Above the general middle caste was the general higher caste and the ruling caste. The only reason 'general' was added was because of inside every main caste there were subcastes. For example, in the slave caste you had manual labor castes, service castes, and pleasure castes; each were treated differently both in public and behind closed doors.

The Pramsoros clan did own slaves, but they treated them well in his opinion. They got clothing branded with the Pramsoros clan logo, a relatively large set of quarters to sleep in, three square meals a day, and one day a week off to take care of personal affairs like cleaning their week's stock of clothing and such. Although they did punish their slaves when they misbehaved or got rowdy, in his opinion it was much tamer in comparison to what his fellow citizens did to theirs. Like for example his childhood neighbors on a nearby plantation plot lost almost a thousand slaves one hot year where most were worked to the grave and others were lost to disease from poor living conditions spreading like wildfire. His family believed a 'happy slave was a productive slave' and for the most part it worked (2). He did at times question internally why they had to take slaves from other races, especially those that took a wrong turn. Was it so wrong to let those that didn't intentionally infringe on the territory of the Hegemony to leave as they came? Sure, slaves taken from a conquered foe was another thing altogether, but wanderers and the lost?

He was knocked out of his thoughts by a warning klaxon activating. "What's going on?!" he asked.

"Sir!" a sensors operator shouted over the alarm. "A massive mass shadow has been found on sensors!"

"What?!"

"Wait!" another officer shouted. "It's not a single mass shadow but almost a hundred and they're coming right us faster than Light Speed!"

"That's impossible! What about the Relay?"

"It hasn't been activated, the vessels guarding it confirmed it."

"But if something was coming at us at lightspeed-?" His thoughts were cut off quite suddenly by the sudden appearance of close to a hundred, just like the officer stationed at one of the many consoles reported, vessels in varying sizes. Twelve of them being three times the size of the vaunted _Destiny Ascension_ that was owned by the Citadel but run by the Asari Republics. The only thing that Pemis could think was that these ships, these industrial looking, utilitarian, and covered in anti-ship weapons was that these were not simple travelers, but warships. The next words out of his mouth without thinking were, "Gods above." He quickly recollected himself before turning to the communications officer, "Open a channel, all frequencies."

"Aye," he replied.

"Attention transgressing vessels: you have entered the sovereign territory of the Batarian Hegemony. Surrender now and prepare to be boarded and enslaved for your transgressions," Pemis said with authority, regardless of the fact he was currently outnumbered until the rest of the Home Defense Fleet came into range.

 **"Attention ruling members of the Batarian Hegemony: we are the hand of the Infinite Empire. For too long your oppressive species has enslaved those you have found to be under you and those who had lost their way. And today that ends. Unlike the** _pathetic_ **Citadel Council that refuses to help their own races enslaved by you, we will not idly stand by and let this affront to the rights that all species have go unchecked. Surrender now and your punishment will be light, but should you not your punishment will be your immediate deaths,"** the female voice on the other side of the display in front of him. This female was definitely a species that he had never seen before. They looked like a mix between Batarian and Asari physically, as he could see what looked like a male, whatever she was, there too.

"Then your deaths will be most painful after decades of slavery," Pemis said with as much authority as his station demanded.

"Sir, the rest of the Home Defense Fleet will not arrive for another five minutes of arc," an officer reported.

"Sir, they're charging weapons," a sensors officer reported.

Pemis took a deep breath and prepared for the worst after he gave his orders. "Charge the main cannon and fire when ready," he ordered. "Contact the surface and request fighter assistance. And may the gods have mercy upon us all."

"They're opening fire!" Immediately green and blue lances of energy leaped from each of the encroaching ships' weapons and crossed the empty space between the Batarian and Imperial vessels and slammed into the escort ships, primarily consisting of frigates and destroyers, and burned straight through their hulls, exposing their crews to vacuum.

One by one in quick succession each of the vessels around them fell in dazzling light shows that Pemis would have considered beautiful if it weren't for the fact that thousands of his comrades were being slaughtered light livestock. He saw as many ships tried to maneuver but the bolts of supercharged energy slammed into them as of this Empire knew where to aim before his comrades even could figure it out.

He saw as blue bolts of energy traveled towards them. He took off his captain's hat and said, "It's been an honor serving with you all." Pemis closed his four eyes and resigned to his fate. However, it didn't come. All he heard was electrical sparking and fuses being blown. When he did finally open his eyes he was shocked to see that every electronic device had an arc of electricity running over it and that these devices were completely shorted out. "Report!"

One of the officers stopped pounding at his console in a vain attempt to make it work, "The enemy hit us with some sort of EMP based weapon, all of our electronics are down and controls aren't responding, we're drifting closer out of the LaGrange point."

"Main cannon status?"

"Completely down," another reported. "They managed to disable us before we could even get a shot off."

"Radiation levels?" Pemis asked as very few weapons could cause a weaponized EMP, one such weapon being those of radiological origin.

"Unknown but standalone analog counters are still within nominal levels for space.

Before Pemis could ask any other status-related question the entire ship shuddered. "What was that?" a crewmember asked.

Suddenly the ship shook multiple times at different areas one after the other. "Do we still have internal communication?" Pemis asked.

A crewmember shook himself out of his stupor before checking several hardwired receivers. "We have the old hardwired system still online!" he reported in relief.

"Good. Radio the security team and request an update."

 **"Captain, something's attached itself to the hull,"** a crew member shouted over the intercom. **"It's cutting through!"** There was a pause and everyone on the bridge could hear the sound of something like a torch cutting through metal before what sounded like a metal slab landing on the deck. **"What the-?"** the crew member asked. The speaker in the bridge was filled with a strange sound that sounded like weapons fire; and then there was silence followed by the sounds of metal on metal began to sound at the other end before it was unceremoniously cut off.

"What was that?" one of the other crew members asked.

"Send a security team to investigate," Pemis ordered. At once, one of the crew members ran from the bridge instead of ordering it through the ship's emergency intercom system. Pemis sighed as the bridge's blast doors closed behind him.

A female officer spoke up, "Sir, we've got internal security cameras online."

Pemis approached the officer and watched as several 2D hologram screens appeared over the console showing the areas where cameras had been set up around the ship, including the bridge, but the officer dismissed that one. "Do we have automated security online?" Pemis asked.

"No," the officer shook her head, "whatever electrical disruption weapon the enemy used took it out. All we have are the cameras."

Pemis sighed in frustration, he wasn't going to take it out on the officer as there was nothing they could do about it. "Go to where the security team was last heard from." The officer nodded and brought up the feed. Even though they could only see the scene, that didn't stop them from feeling absolutely sick. Each of the bodies that laid on the ground were Batarian bodies were covered in charred marks, as if they were hit with particle or plasma based weaponry. 'Gods,' Pemis thought, 'they've mastered particle weaponry?' He shook his head in an attempt to clear his mind. "Are movement sensors back online?"

The officer checked and nodded. "There's movement twelve sections back." She then changed the camera to reveal the invaders.

Marching down one of the many hallways was a column of the strangest warriors they've ever seen. At the front were two mechs that had three legs connected to a ball 'hip' of a sort that then connected to a torso that had two arms whose 'hands' were twin guns. Connected to that was a head that was more of a semi-circle which had three eyes, the third which was lower than the other two was longer than the rest. Behind them were asari-shaped being clad in gray armor bearing the emblem that the Imperial ships were branded with on their shoulder pauldrons, and had a helmet of the same shape of a crossed stick and held gun-like weapons. Next to these soldiers, he assumed, were being clad in the strangest clothing that resembled those that served the Batarian gods of old but had armor covering areas he assumed were vital to their physiology. When he looked at the image closer he saw that three of the four of these beings were the same species that the female that had been in the transmission was, one was a drell? Pemis was confused as he thought that the drell were the client race of the hanar. The strange clad individuals that the drell was with had one weapon: a pistol and a strange rod that didn't even look like a weapon, but something inside him told him that it was.

Pemis watched in horror as the crew member that he had sent appeared on screen after running out of a hallway accompanied by two squads of security personnel who opened fire on the invaders. To their dismay, and his horror, the mechs had some sort of shield around them which caused the sand-sized grains of metal that the rifles spat to be deflected into the walls of the ship. There was no sort of shield that could do that on the market. Absorb? Sure, but deflect? He now knew why the enemy soldiers were behind these mechs, they were keeping them from being shot. He then watched in silence as the mechs opened fire, firing twin lances of particle energy from their gun-hands slaughtering the security team in moments, their kinetic shields doing nothing to protect them, their armor boiling and warping as the bolts hit them. In seconds the security team was no more than corpses on the deck.

Pemis closed his eyes to take a moment of solace and remembrance of the fallen. When he opened his eyes the officer reported, "Sir, they're all over the ship. At least a dozen if not more."

"Where are they headed?" he asked.

"Two of these squads are heading right for us," she said after checking the sensors.

"Can we lock the bridge?" Pemis asked one of the engineers attempting to get systems back online.

The engineer took a moment to think on his feet. "If we redirect power from the security camera system we should be able to engage the maglocks on the blast doors."

Pemis had to think quickly, it was either lose the entire ship or lose the crew and keep the bridge long enough for the ship's systems to be rebooted and the internal security systems to take care of the invaders. It was a tough call regardless. After taking a moment, he made his decision and he could only hope that history would look back at him well for doing the right thing. "Seal the door," he ordered with an attempt to sound indifferent.

The engineer gave a pensive look before obeying orders and started to work in getting the bridge sealed off. Within minutes the blast doors of the bridge were sealed magnetically. Pemis sighed as he knew he doomed many of his crew to their deaths, assuming they didn't make it to the escape pods first, to the invaders. The command crew heard fists pounding on the blast door before their pounding was replaced by the sounds of weapon fire, both the Batarian standard rifle as well as the weapons that the invaders used. Then there was only silence.

Every officer that wasn't holding a rifle held whatever they had with extreme unease. Then two lances of white energy cut into the door at two different points of the blast door. They slowly cut through the door as if it were no more than wet tissue paper, leaving molten metal in their wake. "To arms!" Pemis shouted and the crew aimed at the door, unsure of what was going to happen next.

The heated blades of -plasma?- cut up towards the top of the door before changing the angle they were cutting at, which before was at ninety degrees, to a forty-five-degree angle. They came together at the center-top of the door before they were withdrawn suddenly; it was then Pemis realized they had completed cutting through the door. "Steady!" he ordered.

Then all hell broke loose. The cut door crashed inward, crushing one unlucky crew member who had gotten too close to the door, killing him instantly leaving a red stain that leaked out from under the door. Then the bolts of red particle-based plasma flew into the room fired by those two tri-legged mechs as they marched into the room. Then came the soldier themselves, they moved quickly and brutally. To some that attempted to engage these soldiers in hand-to-hand combat were cut down quickly, one had his skull crushed by the soldier's hands smashing together; another had their jugular sliced by a blade that sprang out of the side of its wrist gauntlet with a backhanded motion. Unlike his crewmember that got his head crushed, the one that had their vein slit died slowly until another took notice and put a bolt into his crewmember's head. Finally, the last two, the robe-like dressed ones, came in and wielded blades of pure energy as they cut down the last remaining holdouts. It was then Pemis realized that these blades were the same that cut through the blast door, and he could see just how devastating they were to flesh; the acrid smell of burning flesh was nauseating.

The soldiers were about to execute him, it was then he realized he didn't even fire his pistol that he still held in his hand, but were stopped by one of the two robed warriors. "Not him. Take him for questioning," the drell ordered. Pemis turned to hear the sound of armor shifting, and when he did he caught the sight of a rifle butt slamming into his face, knocking him out entirely.

XxXxXxX

 _Emperor's Palace, New Mandalore. Two hours later._

Harry was in deep Force meditation inside of his private quarters. He was currently communing with his daughter who was informing him on the battle. While he had feeds and reports from commanders coming in from the invasion, there was nothing like first-hand information given by those in immediate command from their lips and not reports that can be manipulated to sound nice. He hated that, in fact. It probably didn't help that this was the fault of Dumbledore. Harry did tend to reward those who were open and up front with him more than those who did not.

Jane had finished reporting that she had conducted the interrogation of the captain of the Batarian's oldest dreadnaught, _Sky of Khar'shan_ , and had acquired the information needed to mount a precision invasion in which they would hit military targets hard while leaving civilian and slave populations relatively untouched. She did propose orbitally bombarding some stronger held military bases to eliminate assets that could make the push to capture to current heads of the Hegemony intact for subsequent judgment by Harry himself. In fact, she had confirmed that the current heads were in some bunker waiting for the battle, that they assumed they were winning, to be over. As he withdrew from his meditation, he felt something shift in the Force. Not bad but... good, in fact.

He opened his eyes and before the comm system installed had a chance to activate its alarm. "Yes?" he asked calmly.

"My lord, a message has arrived from you from Madame Lovegood, she says 'it's time,'" his secretary reported.

'So she did figure it out after all,' he thought. "Very well. Please send the word to prepare my Interceptor," he replied before disconnecting the call. He then opened a private line to Lily, "Postpone the Reach Shipyard inspection by an hour."

"May I ask why?" Lily asked in turn.

"It's a private matter that I need to see to."

"Very well," she sighed. "Do you want me to have you picked up from wherever it is you're going or back here?"

"Wherever I'll be. I'll send a comm when I'm ready to leave," he said and then closed the connection. He then dressed in his 'Emperor attire', complete with mask, and made his way to his private turbolift and descended to his hangar. He entered his Interceptor and the pilot initiated the launch sequence as the blast door that kept the hangar separated from the outside world out opened. Within moments the Sith Interceptor leaped from the hangar and headed towards Luna's residence, The Rookery.

It had been quite a while since Harry had seen her last. She had been a staunch supporter of his for years, even before he took his throne and became the Emperor. She had married Neville Longbottom and had four children with him, three sons and a daughter who almost looked like Luna's clone, to which Harry called her 'mini me' as a reference to Austin Powers. Those children grew up and established their own families, and those their children built their own once they grew up. When Neville died she changed her last name back to Lovegood as the Longbottom clan was established and was doing well. She retired to her childhood home after many years serving as a staunch supporter of Harry as well as a one-time senator as well in the Imperial Senate. She loved spending time spoiling her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, as well as embarrassing her children to no end. She was the last of Harry's generation that still lived. She dedicated the last years of her life researching something big, something that would be the galaxy's last chance at salvation if all else failed.

Harry saw through the viewport the strange Rook-like structure that Luna's home was. "Land near the edge of the property, I will walk from there," he ordered, "return to the palace and await my transmission for pickup."

"Yes, my lord," his trusted Red Guard pilot replied, activating the ramp to the Interceptor.

Harry walked down and stood on the summer stained grass that the property held. The Interceptor took off and headed towards New London. Once it was out of sight he removed his mask and put the hood of his Emperor robes down. After all, this was personal business, not official Imperial business that required him to act in an official capacity. He walked through the peaceful countryside estate, something that he wrote into law to preserve as much as possible of the Earth. He wanted the perfect amalgamation of technology and nature; he didn't want another Coruscant, a mechanical planet incapable of taking care of itself, relying on outside forces to keep it running. He did keep his own private getaway where he could escape for a little while and just breathe and not be under the pressure that the Head of State has.

He walked slowly, enjoying the sunlight and the clean air that the countryside had that even the smog and pollution removal technologies that had been implemented to remove much of the smog and other pollution that the world had created, both with and without their knowledge in doing so, just couldn't compare to. There was just something about it that just couldn't be replicated and he was glad that places like this still existed.

He approached the front door and knocked firmly on it. The door opened to reveal a Luna lookalike, well hair wise. The woman's hair was Luna's silver-blonde hair, but her eyes were that of what Harry assumed was from her father's side. He was able to determine that she was Luna's granddaughter due to her younger age. "Who are you, what do you want?" she demanded.

"I'm a friend of Luna's, she should be expecting me," Harry replied kindly.

She narrowed her eyes at him, "My great-grandmother hasn't had any friends since-." It was then she realized who was standing before her, even though he wasn't wearing his mask. "My lord, I apologize that I didn't-."

Harry raised a hand to stop her. "I'm here as a friend to Luna, not the Emperor right now. May I please come in and visit my friend?"

She quickly stood aside and allowed him to pass. "Of course, a friend of Luna's is always welcome here." Harry entered at the invitation and she closed the door behind him. He removed his over-robe and hung it on a coat hook near the door revealing his pitch black combat armor and lightsabers dangling from his belt. "This way, please," the Lovegood great-granddaughter led. She led him to the master bedroom, he knew because this was where Luna's father had discussed on his death bed the existence and mythical power that the Deathly Hallows had. She grabbed the door knob and stopped for a moment, "Her children and the rest of the extended family is with her right now, do you need me to clear out the room so you can speak with her?"

Harry shook his head, "No, her family can stay, I have a feeling that whatever is going to happen is something she wants everyone to see." The great-grandchild was unsure what he was talking about but nodded none-the-less. The door opened and Harry saw just the extent of the Lovegood-Longbottom clan. He was slightly jealous of the size of the family Luna had amassed. They had looked at the newcomer with some sense of fear as there was a man dressed in the uniform of Imperial Intelligence and bore lightsabers.

"Make a hole for him, please," called an old yet familiar voice. The family made a one person hole that allowed Harry to approach and see his old friend. "Hello, Harry," she greeted.

Harry looked on to see Luna finally. "You've gotten older," he joked lightheartedly, "gracefully older." Luna had aged quite a bit that made even the last remaining painting of his paternal grandparents look old. Her skin was shriveled and wrinkled, her hair had long since turned a platinum shade of white yet still retained its luster, her eyes had dulled yet still retained some kind of playfulness and aloofness even in her waning hours. She had an IV as well as a heart monitor hooked up that was beeping slowly.

"And after all these years you haven't changed a bit," she playfully quipped. Harry conjured a chair next to her bed and sat beside her. "So how are you? I hadn't heard from you recently."

"Oh, you know, same old same old. Before I got your message I was about to go pick up my new pet project. I want to make an impression on the Council," he chuckled. "So is it true, did you figure it out?"

"I did, I was just saying goodbye when you came in. Come closer." Harry then leaned over and let her whisper in his ear. "That is but your first steps towards achieving it."

"And can others accomplish it too?"

"Only if they are dedicated." She then paused before speaking, "It is time."

She then started to glow with an inner light none had seen before. Luna's features faded as the light enveloped her until there was only a glowing, floating orb of light over her bed. The light then floated next to Harry before coalescing into the shape of a much younger Luna akin to what she looked like in her early twenties. She then leaned forward and kissed Harry on the cheek. "Thank you for being such a good friend," she said in an ethereal voice.

"Now you really do look like the fairy we always said you were like." Harry bowed his head, "I regret not stopping your upperclassmen and fellows from bullying you in our younger years."

She placed a finger on his lips silencing him. "There's no need lamenting about the past, it's nothing we can change."

She glowed once more and what looked like angel wings appeared from her back and she took one big stroke and left through the roof, leaving an undamaged Rookery and amazed family behind. After several moments of silence, a child spoke up, "What just happened?"

"Your great great grandmother has finally figured it out," Harry answered, "she figured out how to Ascend." (3)

XxXxXxX

 _Capital outskirts, Khar'shan surface. 5 hours after initiation of Imperial blockade._

 _Imperial II_ -class Star Destroyer _Fury_ unleashed her point defense guns at the city's surface defense weapons that consisted of quite powerful railguns, however, they were incapable of penetrating the massive 1600 meter long warship's armor. Once the defense guns were eliminated the landing parties began. The initial invasion started with light repulsorlift tanks and heavy All Terrain walkers. Dropships supported the tanks from above, moving quickly along the battlefield deploying fire support and troopers to eliminate any anti-tank weapons or vehicles.

Jacen Dvorak (4), dressed in his Imperial Knight armor, rode alongside the soldiers he commanded in the dropship dubbed the Pelican by many of the Imperial Marines. Ballistics style flack exploded around the ship causing it to shake as the shields and armor took the blows without an issue. "Commander," the pilot shouted from the cockpit, "we are coming up on the first drop zone."

"Good, bring us in close," Jacen said.

The dropship came in close to the city's wall and strafed the defenders with the auto blaster cannon milking many, creating a hole for the Knight and the troopers to work with. The dropship's side door opened and the Knight and jump pack equipped troopers jumped out onto the city's wall. The troopers didn't hesitate to immediately open fire on the Batarian and other mercenary-type forces that they had on planet that were in the process of buying slaves for their own purposes or organizations as they stepped off the dropship they ignited their jump packs and flew over the Batarian defenders and cut them down quickly as they flanked from abnormal angles that fighters they've faced before never used.

Jacen hopped down from the dropship and used the Force to cushion his landing. He ignited his cyan bladed lightsaber and charged towards one of the non-humanoids that the quarrian databases that they had expanded on thanks to the Citadel Codex labeled as krogan, the krogran attempted to fire his shotgun at him, but he managed to dodge the shot before the krogan had even fired. He angled his lightsaber at a diagonal angle and sliced the krogran in half, a frozen face of surprise on his face.

Jacen watched as several other dropships landed on the walls and did the same as his team was doing. He then looked into the city on which they were invading. At the center was a gigantic palace that was quite impressive that towered above the rest of the buildings in the city; whomever the leaders of the Batarian Hegemony were wanted to be seen above their fellows above all else, that was for sure. There were many buildings that made the city look like a cross between that of the holoimages of Nar Shaddaa and of Thessia, or at least the ones that Imperial Intelligence managed to grab without them noticing; some were quite beautiful and others were dingy looking, as if they were for the 'lower' parts of society.

"Commander," a trooper greeted as he approached, "we've taken this section of the wall without any casualties on our side."

"Good," Jacen replied. "And what of the rest of our forces that landed on the walls?"

"They've started to move into the city to make the way for the rest of the main forces."

"Very well, begin moving into the city and clear out any hostiles with extreme prejudice. Be careful about civvies and slaves, if they are forced to fight use stun bolts on them."

"Aye, commander."

XxXxXxX

 _Hegemony bunker. Khar'shan capital bunker._

Odhezis Padbovan, head of the Padbovan clan, a clan that had been around since the founding of the Hegemony itself, Ponine Rabgalok, heiress of the Rabgalok clan and fellow descendant of one of the founders of the Hegemony, and Grophi Krakgah, a newer yet old clan member of clan Krakgah all sat beneath the palace of the Hegemony Ruling Palace in a bunker that had been constructed hundreds of years prior after their race had come into contact with the Citadel races for the first time. The purpose was simple, for those that the Hegemony deemed needed to continue to the Hegemony's rule. Deep within this bunker were also massive stores of materials needed for trade like gold, platinum, and other precious metals and jewels that could be used in circuits that many other races, like the Citadel races, needed for their technological devices. They did have several months of food and water that they would need to survive down in the bunker, but as they had never had a situation where they needed to use the bunker the only viable food and water was old frozen rations and somewhat stale water.

The three Hegemony ruling members watched on their private feeds in the emergency bunker's command center the carnage that the Infinite Empire was carving. Their defense fleet was in tatters, except for the _Sky of Khar'shan_ which was now in enemy hands, their armies stood no chance as the advanced 'laser' weapons made their tanks, fighters, bombers, and soldiers like cattle headed to the slaughter. They had ordered that the slaves that were not claimed by individual families first to be used as meat shields but the invaders had pacification weapons that only knocked out the slaves while they killed the batarian soldiers and other mercenary forces on the planet, especially the capital city, with no mercy. How were they supposed to fight such a juggernaut?

"We must plead our case to the Council," Grophi pleaded, "we're on amicable terms with them, they'll help us!"

"No, they won't!" Odhezis retorted. "They'll only accept our pleas if we abandon our way of life!"

"But we can't fight a force of this size! They have super dreadnought class ships that have weapons and shields that far surpass us! And it's not just one, but dozens; and that doesn't include their dreadnought sized ships!" The two continued to argue like an old, unhappily paired couple; meanwhile, Ponine was watching the feeds that had been pumped into the bunker remotely. "What say you, Ponine?"

"Grophi is right, as we are we stand no chance against these invaders. Even if our distress signals are heard by the pirates and slavers supported by us it'll still take them time to get to us and even then they are inferiorly equipped compared to the home defense fleet, even if their ground fighters are better. Our only chance is pleading our case before the Council remotely requesting assistance. Their fleets will be able to take these invaders on much easier than we would as they have all the latest and greatest war technologies while we've been getting them second-handedly and at a poorer quality."

"As per our bylaws you are outvoted two to one, Odhezis," Grophi quipped in a way that most would consider a superiority complex.

"Fine!" Odhezis shouted as he stood up. "Make your transmission plea to the Council, but don't be surprised if they take away our very way of life."

XxXxXxX

 _Bridge of the Shadow of Intent, high orbit._

"My lady," a sensors officer called out, "there's an unauthorized transmission leaving the planet."

"Point of origin?" Jane asked.

The officer looked at the screen and replied, "From the capital. We've decoded the message. It's a plea to the Citadel Council for aid. Should we block it or allow it through."

"Establish a direct line to the Emperor," Jane commanded.

"Aye, milady."

A moment later a blue-tinged hologram appeared in front of Jane. **"Yes, my daughter?"** the Emperor asked.

"We have intercepted a transmission from the surface, the ruling council of the Batarian Hegemony is requesting aid from the Council races," Jane reported.

 **"I expected such a thing to happen. Hold on to the transmission for twelve hours then release it."**

"Why should we hold it? Shouldn't we just block it?" Jane asked.

 **"No. A twelve-hour window is all I need. It will give me enough time to present a... counter offer to the Council instead."**

"As you wish," Jane replied as she bowed slightly before the transmission ended. She then turned to the officer, "Do as the Emperor commanded."

"Aye, milady."

XxXxXxX

 _Reach orbital shipyards, high orbit._

Harry arrived in the oversized hangar of the Reach shipyard station hub that acted as a mooring point for Destroyers and other Imperial ships returning for repairs. He had just ended the transmission to his daughter as his Interceptor landed. He exited his Interceptor and walked out onto the deck where he was greeted by the shipyard's overseer, Lily was hot on his heels. "My lord, we were expecting you a few hours ago, was your trip uneventful?" the slightly portly officer greeted and asked.

"I had some business to attend to before I left," Harry replied. "Tell me, is she ready for her maiden voyage?" Harry asked as they walked out of the hangar bay and into the shipyard facilities itself.

"My lord, you're going to have to be more-," he trailed before realizing what his Emperor asked, "Oh! You mean the _Sovereign_ project! Yes, she is ready to leave the shipyard."

"Good, good. Have her weapons been tested yet?"

"Everything except for the primary weapon. Although, I have a feeling that you have something special in mind to test it on."

"Indeed I do," he replied as they continued to walk. "And the crew?"

"Taken from the best that the Imperial Naval Academy has provided and their training has been complete for weeks waiting for their time to shine. The fighter wings have the best available pilots the Navy has to offer."

"And they were vetted?"

"All of them went through a comprehensive background check even before they were made known of the project's existence."

"Good, good."

"My lord, do you not wish to fly over to your new ship?"

"No, I wish to see her in all of her majesty."

"Of course, my lord."

They made their way to the maglev tram system that took them to the other side of the shipyard whose 'privacy' shields were still up. This specific shipyard dock was where the original _Resurgence_ -class was built and moored before she was revealed to the Empire. There were only two ways in, through the tram system and through the highly guarded and heavily armed portcullis corridor that only let permitted freighters with preauthorized codes through it. If you didn't have the right codes, well, you were going to have a bad time.

 **[ Balmorra, The Forge. Star Wars: The Old Republic OST. 5:00 (5) ]**

They passed through the corridor and the tram moved towards the end gate where the ending point of the tram was located. Above them, the transparisteel roof and tube revealed the new Destroyer in all of her glory. "She's magnificent," Harry commented.

The _Sovereign_ -class Super Star Destroyer, aptly named _Sovereign_ , was everything that his reports made her out to be. The massive ten thousand meter long craft was every bit beautiful and imposing as you would think it would be. The triangular, dagger design was synonymous with the rest of the Imperial fleet, it had wing-like protrusions from the sides of the vessel that provided more space for autonomous weapons emplacements and gravity well generators as well as tractor beams. The cityscape on the upper hull conveyed a type of organization that few had seen before. The shield generators had been hidden beneath the hull to hide any weaknesses from any foe that managed to actually get in close to the Destroyer. Then there was the hole in the front of the nose of the craft, Harry didn't need to be told what it was for. The spinal mass of lights that led from the nose to the cityscape near the middle and back gave it a sense of serenity and further beauty (6).

Harry turned to the shipyard overseer and said, "You have built her well."

"Thank you, my lord," the overseer bowed. "Would you care for a tour?"

"No. Prepare her for launch, I have a schedule to keep." Harry didn't wait for the overseer's response and crossed the umbilical into his new flagship, for the time being, Lily following him closely. He finally arrived on the bridge which held the standard crew pit that all Star Destroyers had in their bridges. At the back of the bridge near the start of the crew, pit was a command chair that was explicitly designed for comfort with leather seats as they were comfortable.

When the blast doors opened to the bridge the captain saw who Harry was and shouted, "Emperor on deck!"

Immediately and without warning, every crewman shot up and bowed before him. "As you were," Harry said as he took his seat, Lily standing beside him. "Has my Interceptor been brought into the hangar?"

"It has been, my lord," the captain replied earnestly.

"And what is your name, captain?"

He snapped a salute and replied, "Captain Steven Hackett, my lord."

"Captain Hackett, chart a course for the Citadel."

"Aye, aye, my lord."

Alerts went out around the new Destroyer as moorings fell away from the Destroyer that kept it in place while it was being built. The shields that had been protecting the build crews and that had been obscuring the view of the public fell away revealing the ten thousand meter long monstrosity to anyone who was watching. The massive ion engines activated and propelled the ship out of Reach's gravity well. As it approached the edge of the gravity well three other Destroyers joined them, the _Resolute_ , a _Resurgence_ -class, and _Lily's Wrath_ and _Gandalfr_ , both _Imperial II_ -class vessels. Once they had formed up, forming a protective barrier that would maneuver to protect their Emperor, the group jumped into hyperspace.

XxXxXxX

 _The Citadel, Council Chambers. Thirteen hours later._

One hour ago the transmission that the leaders of the Batarian Hegemony sent out finally arrived in the hands of the Citadel Council via a turian cruiser protecting a communications buoy. The three members were shocked at the actions of this so-called Infinite Empire. They had invaded the Batarian homeworld of Khar'shan without warning and without due cause to. They had broken Citadel laws and they would be punished for it. That is, once they finally made a decision on it finally.

"We must send a fleet!" Sparatus shouted, slamming his fist on the table.

"Will do no good," Valern stated, "Citadel ships will be destroyed needlessly."

"Then what should we do then, hmm? Do nothing and let this unknown power gain more ground, especially a foothold closer to Citadel Space?"

"Enough!" Tevos shouted. Both the turian and salarian quite aptly shut up allowing her to speak. "Arguing will get us nowhere." She then turned to Valern, "Are these the same ships that attacked the STG stealth ship?"

The salarian rubbed her chin before saying, "They match the same type of profile that the one that the STG managed to gain images of before their destruction."

"Then we know it is the same individuals who have the quarians. Now, do we know why they even attacked the batarians?"

"The message from the Hegemony stated that they were attacked unprovoked," Sparatus replied.

Tevos had to roll her eyes, "And do you honestly believe that? The Batarian Hegemony has been sponsoring pirate and slaver attacks in the galaxy, primarily the Terminus, for decades. I think it has something to do with the slavery they are infamous for."

"And what makes you think that?" Valern asked.

"The fact that they went straight to the source. Shoot at a Thresher Maw and you do nothing to it but annoy it, cut off its head and you kill it for good."

"Say that this Infinite Empire is, in fact, the individuals that own the ship that destroyed the STG vessel, how are you going to bring them to heel? By asking nicely?" Sparatus chided.

"Remember when we first discussed this?"

"Yes?"

"We get a representative here and we slam them with monetary charges and tariffs so they have to hand over their technology."

"And if that doesn't work?"

"We find their homeworld and hold it, hostage."

"That is the stupidest idea I have ever heard-," Valern trailed before alarms began to activate.

"What's going on!?" Tevos shouted.

On the right side, from their perspective, of the chambers a hologram projector activated. **"Councilors, we've detected a huge energy surge just beyond the nebula,"** an asari reported.

"Is it the Relay, captain?" Valern asked the crew member.

 **"No, the Relay hasn't activated at all. There haven't been any ships that have come through that weren't scheduled and they don't match the power spike we've detected."** There was some background chatter on the bridge before the asari captain said, **"By the goddess."**

"Captain, what is it?" Tevos asked.

 **"They're ships, absolutely massive ships!"** the captain shouted. **"They're approaching the Citadel!"**

"Well fire on them!" Sparatus ordered.

 **"Are you kidding!? They're super dreadnoughts and we're a frigate!"** another crewmember shouted.

Another communication line opened up on the other side of the chamber revealing the captain of the _Destiny Ascension._ **"Councilors, the massive ships that the** _ **Azure Horizon**_ **has relayed to us are coming into view shortly."**

 **[ The Imperial March. Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back OST, John Williams (7) ]**

The Council watched above as the nebula clouds parted to reveal massive dagger shaped ships on a course right for the Citadel. There was no hiding it from the public as they saw the communications systems lighting up as citizens were calling CSEC about what they had just seen. The first two were easily sixteen hundred meters long, longer than the _Destiny Ascension_ herself, the next one of over three thousand meters dwarfed those two, but then came the behemoth. If what their sensors were reading correctly then the massive vessel in the center of these three ships was ten THOUSAND meters long. They then saw what their sensors read as hundreds of fighter sized craft buzzing around these massive vessels. In that moment the Council had no idea what to do, they didn't know whether they should attack or not. Valern even considered surrendering outright without a shot being fired. After all, no one had built anything the size of that super dreadnought, at least no one in this age had.

 **"Councilors, your orders?"** the captain asked, she too internally trembling at the size of the four ships.

"Do nothing."/"Fire!" Tevos and Sparatus shouted at the same time. "What!?"/"What!?"

"Are you insane?" Sparatus questioned.

"I should be asking you the same question!" Tevos shot back. "We have no idea if they don't consider us a threat and only attacked the batarians because they were!"

"If we don't fire now then they could strike first!"

 **"Councilors, there's an incoming transmission,"** the captain reported, **"should I patch it through?"**

"See?" Tevos shot Sparatus a dirty look, "they are willing to talk." She then turned her attention to the captain, "Please patch it through." The captain nodded and her image was replaced by that of what looked like what an asari male would look like if they existed that is. He was clad in dark robes and armor as well as a mask that concealed his identity. "Greetings, your arrival has created quite a stir. Who are you, exactly?" she greeted this unknown being.

 **"I am a representative of the Infinite Empire. I wish to come aboard to discuss the reasons for our invasion of the batarian homeworld,"** the figure replied.

"That is quite a large contingent for just a representative," Valern commented, still slightly in shock.

 **"The Emperor wants to ensure my safety."**

"But of course," Tevos replied, "you may come aboard."

 **"I shall embark on a shuttle escorted by two fighters. Any hostile actions will be interpreted as an act of war."**

"Are you threatening us!?" Sparatus demanded.

 **"No, it is but a warning and the crew have their orders directly from the Emperor himself. You may consider that your one and only warning."**

"Coordinates will be sent to your ship to a hangar where your shuttle may land," Tevos interrupted any other cockamamy threats that Sparatus could throw out to this unknown representative.

 **"Very well. I will see you soon."** And with that, the transmission ended. For the next fifteen minutes, the two Council members would fight over who was in the right and who was wrong while Valern felt a feeling that he hadn't felt in years: foreboding.

XxXxXxX

 _Sith Interceptor, en route to Citadel docks. Fifteen minutes later._

Harry sat in his familiar Sith Interceptor, the same that he had for well over a hundred years. A ship that he had poured time and money into keeping in pristine condition. The weapons were constantly upgraded to ensure superiority and the hull reinforced with runic arrays that made the small freighter sized craft into a moving fortress that could only be matched by warships themselves. After all, there was nothing that wasn't too good to protect the Emperor.

The Interceptor had left the large private hangar that could have housed a large corvette without any issue. Flanking the sides of the Interceptor were two red painted TIE Hunters who had the S-Foils locked in flight position, but the pilots' fingers were on the trigger to immediately switch into Attack Position if needed. These two fighters were manned by members of the Imperial Red Guard and their fighters were more heavily equipped, armored, and shielded than the stock TIE Hunters which were already more advanced than their counterparts already in service with the Navy.

Inside the Interceptor were Harry acting as the 'Imperial representative', Lily, several helmeted troopers, several members of the Red Guard, and one hologram emulator droid with transmitter capabilities (8). The Interceptor and fighter escort moved towards the Citadel's docking ward at the lowest point of the station which would require a very long elevator ride to even reach the center of the station where the Council of the Citadel would be seated. Why they weren't allowed to dock at the top, where there was a docking ring if what the sensors were reading were correct, he didn't know.

The Interceptor landed in the hangar but didn't land where the CSEC landing crews thought they were going to land as they landed on the side of the dock itself instead of the slot that ships would moor in with electromagnetic clamps powered by eezo would hold them in place. Harry knew that was already a trap as they could keep him here as long as they wanted without due cause or until he surrendered whatever technologies that the Empire had over their puny Citadel Navy. The fighters' screams filled the hangar as they landed nearby the Interceptor which lowered its boarding ramp. Harry made his way down the ramp and compressed air that was supercooled from the vacuum of space jetted out of specific ports near the ramp creating hissing noises that the waiting 'welcoming party' started to become jumpy at.

When he had arrived at the bottom of the ramp he was approached by a turian dressed in armor and armed with what he knew from the analog as a rifle. "You will surrender your weapons," the turian demanded.

Harry was not impressed by the 'show of force' they had. He waved his hand subtly below the waist casting a combination Confundus and Mind Trick, "You will let us pass with our weapons."

The turian's eyes glassed over for a moment and parroted, "I will let you pass wi- why would I do that?"

Harry realized that this specific race wasn't as susceptible to the Mind Trick like others were so he'd have to press more. "You WILL let us pass with our weapons."

The turian's eyes seemed to glass over even more, "I will let you pass with your weapons."

One of the asari subordinates spoke up, "Umm sir, are you alright?"

The turban blinked as he tried to refocus. "I'm fine, officer. I think I'm coming down with something, that's all. Please escort the emissary and his friends to the Council chambers." He started to walk away and muttered, "I need a glass of whiskey."

The group continued to the primary elevator that led to the Council chambers itself; it was quite crowded inside as the small Imperial contingent and the CSEC officers crammed inside. The ride was uncomfortably quiet as the long, very slow elevator continued its trip towards the top. 'Dear Merlin, this is slower than every turbolift traveling in the palace at once!' Harry thought.

"My lord," Lily said in Mando'a, "do you feel it?" She shivered at the feeling of cold that the Force echoed.

Harry reached out with the Force and felt millennia upon millennia of pain, suffering, and death that echoed throughout the entire station. "I feel it as well. It's a wound in the Force itself. Countless trillions have been slaughtered here and this Council doesn't even realize the trap they are sitting upon." His mask hid whatever reaction the members of CSEC could have seen.

The asari CSEC officer noticed their swapping of languages and asked, "What language is that?"

"It's the language of our people, the Mandalorians," Harry replied.

Her eyes scrunched up in confusion. "Wait, I thought you were an emissary of the Infinite Empire?"

"I am."

"Then what is Mandalorian then, is that your race's name?"

"It's more of a sociological ideology and social identity rather than a race in and of itself. There are many races inside the Empire and our society is Mandalorian, a society based on personal and familial honor."

"So what exactly were you talking about?"

"That was a private conversation." Before the asari could retort once more the elevator finally reached the top and the doors opened. Harry wasn't that impressed by what he saw. From a design aesthetic it looked nice, but from a functionality point, it had none. The metal beneath his boots felt less durable than the outer hull of the station itself.

"The Council is right ahead," the asari said pointing towards the dome that had a raised platform beneath it.

Harry and company continued to walk forward as the CSEC escort followed slightly behind. As they approached the pinnacle of the Presidium they were watched closely by many of the other politicians that lobbied there earlier that day and would do so later after Harry had left. Some looked on with awe while others in some sense of primordial fear that they could not explain away. As the reached the platform that extended over a glass window covered zen-like garden that served no real purpose other than to bring some greenery to the artificial station. As they approached the three Councilors of the Citadel Council looked on in slight surprise as the Imperial contingent was still armed despite the fact that CSEC had been ordered to confiscate their weapons.

The first to speak was the one tagged by quarian archive data as Tevos, an asari who had been on the Council itself for several centuries. "Welcome, emissary of the Infinite Empire," she greeted. "I hope your trip was uneventful. Tell us, why haven't you come here?"

"Have you come to join the Citadel?" Valern asked.

"Or have you come forward to admit to your crimes?" Sparatus more demanded than asked, which got him a slight glare from Tevos.

'That man knows no subtly,' Tevos thought. "What my fellow Councilor means to ask is have you come forth to explain your government's recent actions?"

"Tell me," Harry asked as he started to pace, "do any of you condone slavery?"

"No, it is an uncivilized way of oppressing our fellow sentient species," Tevos replied carefully.

Harry stopped and looked Tevos right in the eye, she could have sworn she could have felt him looking right into her soul. "Then why do you tolerate the existence of the Batarian Hegemony and their tendency to enslave all who come into their territory, territories that they don't bother disclaiming to you or other galactic bodies to prevent accidental trespassing causing innocents to be enslaved for the rest of their days? You claim to be civilized and you claim that the type of a civilization that the batarians hold is uncivilized yet you tolerate their existence, why? Do you not know they enslave their own species as well?"

"They are in the Terminus Systems and any modicum of force would be seen as an act of war towards the rest of the residents of the Terminus," Valern replied.

"Then the Citadel Council is a failure of a government. A government who is not willing to protect their own when they are taken by an outside force. Are you so high up on your pedestals and so far up your own rectums that you cannot see your own shortcomings?" Harry chastised. "Do you know what the Empire does to slavers?"

"I can't say that we do, we know nothing about your people or culture," Tevos replied.

"The Emperor executes them… personally."

All three of the Councilors were speechless. "That's quite… extreme," Valern said.

"Absolutely savage!" Sparatus shouted. "Do you not have a penal system?"

"We do, however, Imperial law sees slavers as the ultimate scum of the galaxy who infringe on the Inalienable Rights that all sentient beings have. And since they see fit to take away the lives of those they see as expendable, their lives are forfeit."

"My lord," the droid interrupted, it's synthetic voice filling the room, "I am receiving a transmission relayed from the _Shadow of Intent_."

"Patch it through," Harry ordered.

Immediately, the droid knelt in front of him and a high pitched whirring sound started before a small blue-purple flash and a young adult female stood in the droid's place kneeling like he was. The image flickered revealing that it wasn't a new person, but a holographic projection. **"My lord, we've apprehended the three heads of the Hegemony that were hiding in their bunker,"** she reported.

"Good. You have done well in your campaign," Harry commended.

The female waved her hand and behind her three batarians appeared in a blue-white hologram, all three of them kneeling with blasters held to the back of their heads, their hands behind their heads all in binders. **"I await your orders."**

"As I am not there, I wish for you to act in my stead. Kill them," Harry ordered.

 **"As you wish, my Emperor."**

Jane stood up and activated her lightsaber, which the droid emulated with a hologram as well, and walked over to the three who were crying out in indignation. Jane sliced the batarians' heads off with three quick flourishes and one pirouette added in for style. "Very good. Continue with phase two."

 **"By your word,"** Jane replied with a slight bow before the transmission ended, revealing the endoskeleton of the droid once more.

The Council was in absolute shock. Valern realized that the footage that they had received had been delayed for hours allowing for the execution to play out before them. Sparatus realized that three foreign heads of government were executed right in front of him. And Tevos realized that the man that claimed to be an emissary for the Empire was really the Emperor himself. Without saying anything nor making any noticeable, to anyone who didn't have the Force to warn them, movements she pressed a panic button that alerted the CSEC and asari commando forces to come to the Presidium at once.

"So-called Emperor of the Infinite Empire," Tevos said with bravado as she stood up. "You stand guilty of murder by proxy as well as crimes against sentience. You and your people will be arrested and your worlds and technologies place under our control." She finished the last sentence, especially with a shit-eating grin.

Harry only cocked his head as dozens of CSEC members as well as the so-called elite asari commandos flooded into the room. "Were it so easy," Harry cryptically said.

He summoned his lightsabers into his hands and held his thumbs over the activation studs, waiting for the Council to make the first move. His troopers already had their blasters trained on enemies, their other multiple weapons primed for fighting as well. His Red Guard already had their lightsabers in hand and Lily took her place by his side, her own lightsaber already in her hand. "What are you waiting for?" Sparatus shouted, "arrest them!"

For the CSEC and asari commandos, all hell broke loose. Lightsabers ignited, the safety of blasters were turned off, rifles were cocked, and biotics were primed.

XxXxXxX

 _Meanwhile on Khar'shan, capital city._

For Rilthyte T'eaara (9), she didn't know what to think. She had been a slave on the hellhole that was Khar'shan for over ten Thessian years; she would know, she counted. She was the fourth daughter of a low level Matriarch in the Thessian Senate and was considered the 'wild child', always seeking the next adventure even when compared to her sisters; then again, she was still in her Maiden stage of life. She had been captured years ago when the freighter that she had been captaining, on a loan from her mother no less, had wandered into a batarian slaver trap performed by a pirate crew. Her crew, which had been a hodgepodge group of asari, turians, salarians, and a quarian who was finishing her pilgrimage that week no less, had been taken, catalogued, and tagged with explosive control chips before they were taken to a slave market where they were all sold off one by one until only she remained as her beauty had made her the top slave for the day bringing hundreds of thousands of credits to the pirate that captured her.

For the last ten years, she had been forced to be the plaything of any batarian or mercenary hired by the batarians who could pay enough. Her attire usually consisted of some of the most revealing lingerie, if you could call it that as it was nothing more than strips of metal for support and extremely thin and sheer material that covered herself, or nothing at all. Today had been different, though. Early in the Khar'shan morning, she had heard explosions coming from outside the city and the local news reported it as nothing more than a weapons drill by the illustrious 'batarian defense force'. But as it went on for hours, she knew that it wasn't drills if she even believed the reporters in the first place, but an invasion as the machines making the explosions weren't batarian military, but someone else's. Finally, they came.

She swore for years that the Citadel was going to have enough of the Hegemony's barbaric practices and would come in, bringing the entire turian fleet with them to free everyone they had taken from their homes and families, most of whom would never see them again. But like she had discovered, things turned out differently than expected.

First of which was the soldiers themselves, they all wore silver-gray armor with black, polarized visors in the shape of a T. The second was their equipment and weapons, they all had jetpacks, flamethrowers, some sort of cryogenics launcher, poison darts, gauntlet blades, what seemed to be hydraulic enhanced gauntlets, and laser guns of all things. The armor itself hid any specific identifying markers of race, but when she saw what accompanied them she knew that this was a new, and much more powerful, species altogether. These individuals were dressed in a combination of what looked like robes that reclusive monks wore as well some kind of black, reflective armor; she had assumed these were some kind of warrior monks or something, but the energy swords they bore made them more like the swordswomen that used to be a large part of the military forces of ancient Thessia, minus the energy swords that is.

The batarians that had been in the area were either routed or killed and she was left in the hands of the hands of these new, unknown people. They had taken her from her place of 'employment' and her explosive collar was released by one of those swordsmen, and a drell at that, removed without him even touching it. They were then brought to the main courtyard outside of the palace-like building that the Hegemony heads made all of their decisions where she was shocked to find that not only were the three big heads on their knees with their hands behind their heads, but the young woman on the stage executed the heads at the command of the Emperor of this Infinite Empire with her own energy sword who had given the order by hologram. Then the hologram seemed to shift and grew bigger until everyone in attendance could see it. She could also tell that this was being transmitted everywhere if the echoes from close by areas were anything to go by.

" **Attention former slaves of the Batarian Hegemony, I am the Emperor of the Infinite Empire and I am pleased to inform you that as of today you are all free. You are free to do as you choose and please. As of today the planet of Khar'shan and her system are now part of the Infinite Empire and we do not tolerate slavery, we annihilate it. So today I give you, the former slaves of the Hegemony, a choice. You may join this diverse Empire and live under our protection while bringing your talents to make the Empire a better place for all. Should you choose to not join us, we will respect your decision and will give you transport to the planet of your origin so you may hopefully reunite with your loved ones. But before you do make your choice I want you to consider this: the Citadel, the government that promised to protect you failed you by not even attempting to bring you back home, but we, an empire of diverse species came to your rescue with no political drama to keep us from doing so and a military strong enough to not care what the rest of the Terminus Systems thinks about us. I ask that you take this into consideration when making your decision."**

Rilthyte didn't listen to the rest of the speech as it already caused some major doubts on the Citadel to be cast upon them. 'Why didn't they come to rescue us? Are we so unimportant to them?' she thought. She knew her mother would have lobbied relentlessly until she was back home with her family. Every question she asked herself created more and more until only one true path remained clear: the Citadel was not the benevolent and nonbiased galactic government in the galaxy, they had a rot inside of them that went back to well before the asari came across the Citadel. Her future was both safe and secure inside this new Empire, and many of her fellow freed slaves were thinking the same thing; the only personal question remained for her was how was her family going to react to her decision?

XxXxXxX

 _Presidium, Citadel. Five minutes after the engagement._

Tevos could not believe how fast her plan backfire. Countless commandos were dead and CSEC were maimed, disabled, or rendered as non-combatants. This Emperor was not an armchair general that let all of his cronies do all his work for him, as the Council would do though they would never admit to it, but would handle it himself. Despite being clad in robes he moved as though they weren't there, he dodged any bullets fired at him well before they could even touch him, biotics were frozen in midair before being thrown back at their casters. Even the droid that looked like nothing more than a protocol droid fought with the ferocity that you would have only seen from a krogan battle master.

The mental reactions of the Council were as such: Tevos wanted the technology, Valern wanted to dissect the species that could use 'colorless biotics' to see how they worked and how their abilities could be implemented in salarian (and Citadel) soldiers, and Sparatus wanted them dead. In fact, he wanted them dead so badly that he already phoned in the fleet to start targeting the Empire's dreadnoughts and super dreadnoughts. Luckily for Tevos, he didn't put the _Destiny Ascension_ into play (10).

There was a lull in the 'battle' (see: massacre) where CSEC officers were pulling their, and the commandos, dead and injured back behind barricades that led into service areas that only those with authorization could get to and the Empire regrouped with the Emperor in the center of a borderline impenetrable shield that could fire back and kill.

"My lord," the droid said, "incoming transmission from the _Sovereign_."

The hologram emitters hummed with their high pitched whine and a purple-blue flash later Captain Hackett appeared in the place of the droid. **"My lord, they have moved their fleet into attack positions. Your orders?"**

"You have my permission to test the primary weapon. Fire at will, captain." Hackett bowed slightly as the transmission ended. Harry then turned his attention to the Council once more, "Due to your lack of leadership and in a play of trying to further yourselves rather than the people you represent, more lives will be lost this day. Their blood is on your hands."

XxXxXxX

 **[ Battle of Endor I. Star Wars: Episode VI Original Soundtrack. John Williams. Start: 8:45 (11) ]**

 _Meanwhile on the Sovereign._

Steven Hackett had been looking forward to this day, the day that they'd be able to test the primary weapon of this Super Star Destroyer. The Emperor had already given the command and the Citadel ships had already come into range well before he had contacted the Emperor for his direct permission to fire the weapon. After all, they had plenty of targets to choose from.

"Captain," a targeting officer called out, "we have a targeting resolution on their largest ship."

Up on the holographic display showed four prime Citadel dreadnoughts ready for targeting. One of them was a little quicker and therefore became the first victim of the primary weapon. "Fire!"

Deep within the ship men and women at consoles flipped switches and pressed buttons in a particular sequence that added up in the firing of the weapon. Power deep within the rune engraved hypermatter reactor was redirected towards kaiburr crystal powered exotic matter laser weapon's two tributary beams that focused into a single beam inside the ship itself, protecting the emitters, lenses, electromagnetic coils, and focusing crystals needed to make it a ship and weapon to be feared. The entire bridge was filled with a green-blue hue as the beam leapt through the fine veil of hyperspace and realspace towards the first dreadnought at a range and speed that surprised their target. They tried to veer away, but it was too late for them. The superlaser sliced through any form of shielding and armor that the ship may have had and less than a second later after contacting the dreadnought, it exploded into a million pieces.

"Target another, prepare to fire but only on my command," Hackett ordered. If it were at all possible he'd hope to waste as few lives as possible. After all, they could join the Empire one day.

XxXxXxX

 _Presidium. Ten seconds before firing._

Tevos could already see something was off even before ten seconds passed after the Emperor's order to fire some sort of 'primary weapon'. She was getting reports from the sensors array on the _Destiny Ascension_ that power was being assembled by the massive vessel that the Emperor named as the _Sovereign_ from seemingly nowhere. Then it happened. A single blue-green hued energy lance with a pure white core leapt from the bow of the super dreadnought and slammed into the flagship of the turian led fleet's dreadnought that strayed a few dozen kilometers in front of the rest of the battle group. And in the blink of an eye, one moment it was there, the next it was gone and what replaced it was a ball of flame and ship fragments.

This was the primary weapon the Emperor referred to. And it was both mesmerizing and terrifying. A weapon that could destroy entire dreadnoughts in one shot when it took massive battles just to take one down. How could they compete with that? And if the energy readings that the _Destiny Ascension_ was reading correctly, then it was about to fire again.

Sensing what Tevos was thinking, Harry spoke up. "You can end this right now. My ship is waiting for my command to end engagements with your fleets and it is ready to fire again. Will you sacrifice another ten thousand souls to the void while you keep your very fragile egos and personal agendas?" Harry asked as his lightsaber hummed beside him.

"What is it you want?" Tevos demanded, albeit defeatedly.

"For you to stay out of our affairs. If you had done your jobs like you were supposed to then we would not have had to invade Khar'shan nor have my Super Star Destroyer engage your own fleet saving hundreds of thousands of lives. I didn't want to do it, but your lack of real leadership left me with no choice in the matter."

"Fine! We'll stay out of your affairs," Tevos relented as if she were being forced to drink putrid liquor mixed with the saltiest poison to exist.

"You will let us leave unhindered and should any planet or colony that currently resides in your current roster of planets decides to join us, you WILL respect their decision."

"The first we can allow, but the second is unacceptable!" Sparatus shouted.

"Are the people that you represent not free thinking beings with interests of their own? If they are and they choose to join the Empire if for anything but their own self-interests then they should be free to do so. My armies and navies would protect them as if they were with us from the beginning. Can you say that you would do the same if the situation was reversed?" Harry asked. Sparatus's silence was his answer. Harry tapped a button on his gauntlet, "Captain, cease fire on the Citadel fleet. But keep the guns hot in case they decide to pull something shady." Harry turned his attention to the Council once more, "It was a pleasure meeting you, let's do this again sometime."

Harry and the Red Guard then extinguished their lightsabers and left the Presidium, the Imperial troopers following with their blasters still ready to fire on demand. As they entered the elevator that would take them back to the docks Tevos didn't know whether she should be happy she was alive or scared shitless that there might be another time where this might all happen again.

Back with Harry, they traveled without issue back to the hangars, although they got incredibly dirty looks from the CSEC officers that were told not to interfere with them regardless of the fact that this man had killed ten people alone without the help of another and without any of the unknown 'invisible biotics' that his red-clad guards used. Once back in the hangar, they entered the Interceptor and didn't wait a moment before departing. Harry's command chair turned to the side as he had already noticed one of the members of Imperial Intelligence beside him.

"Were you successful?" Harry asked.

"I was, my lord," the drell answered with a slight bow. "Wiretaps and cyber-surveillance backdoor software have been successfully installed on the station allowing for direct information taps."

"And were you seen?"

"Those who did will have minor headaches in an hour. I placed several cups of the swill they use to keep themselves awake around implying that they fell asleep on the job."

"Good. This is why you're one of my best agents, Agent Krios (12)."

He bowed once more and replied, "I am honored to serve both you and the Empire, my lord."

XxXxXxX

 _The Imperial Palace, New Mandalore. One week later._

Harry sat upon his throne in the inner sanctum of his palace meditating. The week after the very short 'Khar'shan conflict' had been very quiet in the Empire. The Imperial forces near Khar'shan were still routing out holdouts who supported the old regime as well as those that retreated back into the Mass Relays heading for systems unknown as they covered their tracks quite well. The mercenaries hired by the Hegemony to reinforce their military in key points surrendered or ran when their source of income was killed off. Those that escaped went with the Hegemony holdouts that also escaped through a hole in the blockade net that was around the Relay. Those that were captured revealed they were part of the Blood Pack mercenary group. These mercenaries primarily consisted of krogans, vorcha, varren attack beasts, and some batarians (although the latter is quite a small percentage).

Harry could see the advantage of mercenary groups for governments to use as to distance themselves from conflicts. The very talkative vorcha had also revealed two more mercenary groups that made their home in the Terminus Systems and made port on the long-running privateer port of Omega: the Eclipse mercenary group and The Voiceless Ones mercenary group (13). The former was a primarily asari created and run group that had been around for many centuries while the latter was a salarian and turian run and operated group that had been around for almost twenty years. Harry made sure to make BOLO markers on these groups as he suspected that the Citadel Council, primarily Tevos and Sparatus, might use these groups to strike at the Empire instead of doing it directly. After he humiliated their military and government as a whole, he wouldn't be shocked if they did strike back this way.

Harry was dressed in very casual workout attire as he had intended to train later on that day. His eyes were closed as he heard the borderline silent sound of the doors opening to his sanctum. He knew the presence quite well, after all, it was his closest friend and ally. "Rise, Lily," he said as he knew she was kneeling nearby. He heard the shifting of clothing as she stood up. "What is it that you have to report?"

"Everything is going according to plan. The former slaves have already begun to organize a local government reminiscent of the old House of Commons and they're already started preliminary elections to determine two senators for the planet, they're planning on one from the local batarians who were slaves themselves and one from those who were brought in who wanted to stay."

"That's understandable, one to keep some cultural heritage intact while a second brings in something new."

"Approximately twenty percent of slave population elected to leave to head back to families that they know they have. Others, like salarians who have no families due to their much shorter lifespan or those taken from colonies where they were wiped off the map elected to stay. Transportation is being arranged, however, there aren't many eezo equipped ships on the size of what we need to transport them back to major population centers. We can use hyperdrive equipped ships but we would be risking them being captured or destroyed by Citadel or pirate sources."

"Agreed. Contact Reach and see if they can retrofit some heavy freighters with eezo cores instead of hyperdrives to meet this demand."

"And after their purpose is through?"

"Use them as trading vessels along the Relay network. We can use this as an opportunity to trade technology and culture through the Relay network to made eventual integration seamless."

"And the Council won't introduce heavy tariffs?"

"Unless they want the _Sovereign_ and me to pay them another visit, they won't. After all, we can duplicate gold or other precious metals to cover unfair expenses they throw our way while still keeping our Credit value intact."

"I also have an update on the Avalon project (14)."

"Oh?"

"The early estimates have come in and they are below expectations."

"That's unacceptable."

"I know, and that's why someone has suggested making contact with the geth."

Harry stood up and looked at Lily. "And I assume they provided a reason as to why?"

"Being borderline true intelligences they improve and evolve on designs that their predecessors had created centuries ago."

"I assume that quarians wouldn't be too keen on them joining us."

"Perhaps. Although they have been warming up to droids for years now, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to at least introduce the motion to the Senate and see what reaction it gets."

"That's a reasonable course of action." Harry paced past Lily and towards one of the other windows overlooking New London. "The quarians get their homeworld back and the geth can join the AetherNet should they wish to which will give us access to their consciousness. For the Empire, it's a win-win situation."

"And if they retaliate like they had been to any outsiders, including the quarians?"

"We strike quickly and use cyber warfare to take them down permanently. The Avalon project will be delayed, but not within reasonable expectations."

"I will put out the appropriate communications to the senators requesting an emergency meeting," Lily said with a bow before leaving the room.

Everything would proceed as he had foreseen it. If it didn't then the entire galaxy would suffer once more.

 **To be continued...**

XxXxXxX

 **Codex:** _ **Quickfire**_ **-class corvette**  
 **The** _ **Quickfire**_ **-class corvette is a vessel designed for long deployments for scouting out potential threats, systems for colonization, or for battlefield support in a larger battle group. The corvette is assigned to the Imperial Naval Scout Corps as well as the Imperial Commandos. This corvette carries a single squadron of snubfighters for both scouting and defense of the corvette primarily consisting of fast, maneuverable fighters; the Commandos carry TIE Hunter fighters. The corvette is armed with multiple point-defense cannons, two plasma railguns capable of 270° of rotation, and one single forward heavy blaster cannon; however, armaments and fighter compliments may differ from ship to ship depending on deployment requirements.**

 **Codex: TIE Hunter**  
 **The TIE Hunter is the newest in the line of snubfighters designed for total battlefield superiority when fighters are taken into the battlefield tactics equation. These fighters are only piloted by either the Imperial Commandos or those deemed worthy enough in the Imperial Fighter Academy (although field promotions can qualify a pilot if simulator scores are high enough). These fighters are equipped with advanced shields, carved runic damage redirection arrays, and hardened durasteel-titanium hull plating. They are armed with twin-linked blaster cannons, two linked ion cannons, and dual proton torpedo launchers (proton torpedoes may be swapped with other launched heavy weapons like Concussion Missiles). The two things that set this fighter apart from others is the hyperdrive which gives it a lack of a need for a carrier to transport it as well as tactical options for a pilot to turn the tide of a dogfight; the second is the eezo enhanced ion engines giving it maneuverability and speed that other fighters currently do not have. Due to the expense of the manufacturing these fighters they are in limited supply and is was mentioned before are only is only piloted by the best of the best.**

 **Codex: Imperial Commandos**  
 **The Imperial Commandos are an elite unit comprised of the best the Imperial Marines, Army, and Fighter Corps have to offer. They train to be the best of the best and are deployed in both covert operations and special application situations that make use of their talents. Imperial Commandos are expected to be expert marksmen, knowledgeable in all weaponry both Imperial and foreign in order to adapt to any situation and be able to fly fighters and other types of craft if the mission requires it. Their identities are kept a secret to protect their families.**

 **Codex: Marine Orbital Drop Corps**  
 **The Orbital Drop Corps was inspired by the series** _ **Halo**_ **and when the Emperor saw the idea that the game presented, he implored the Research and Development division to figure out a way to make this a reality. Two variants were created to cater to multiple situations. A single occupant pod was created for the purpose of infiltration either with a single operator or squad who would drop separately, a four-occupant pod was created for the purpose of deploying troops quickly to the front to supplement overwhelmed forces or to the rear of an enemy emplacement to employ different tactics in ground assaults. These pods are dropped from capital ships, primarily Star Destroyers or comparable large capital ships, into the area of operations. When deployed by a competent commander the Orbital Drop Corps can change the tide of battle in the favor of the Empire.**

 **Codex:** _ **Predator**_ **-class Prowler corvette**  
 **The** _ **Predator**_ **is the newest in the line of Prowler corvettes used by the Imperial Office of Naval Intelligence. The Prowler corvette was originally developed after a ship designer for the Reach shipyards played old** _ **Halo**_ **games on the Imperial AetherNet attempted to recreate the stealth ship and did so with the assistance of a skilled enchanter and rune master on the small scale by retrofitting a snubfighter with the experimental technology, runes, and enchantments. Once the prototype was proven to the Imperial Navy, the designer, enchanter, and rune master were commissioned to create an entire class of spy based vessels. The prototype currently resides in the Emperor's palace proudly on display. The** _ **Predator**_ **class has refined everything that previous classes had pioneered before it. Its stealth ablative coating keeps it from being seen by LIDAR and RADAR, photo-reactive panels keep it from being seen by any passersby while landed for extended repairs or observation on pre-spaceflight species, or in the case of enchantment or rune malfunction or failure a backup stealth option. The enchantments are not completely disclosed but do include metal strengthening and lightening enchantments to make atmospheric travel more viable. A nondisclosed runic array that creates a light bending envelope around the vessel to render it completely invisible to organic and synthetic vision.**

 **Codex: Imperial Office of Naval Intelligence**  
 **The Imperial Office of Naval Intelligence is a division of the Imperial Navy who closely works with both the Emperor personally as well as the Imperial Commandos. This division in the Navy does as its name implies, they are the masters of Intelligence in the Empire. This secretive department manages all spies inside of enemy territory as well as whispers of supporters of the Light and Dark Wizarding factions. Those that mind their own business have nothing to fear from the Office of Naval Intelligence, but those who sympathize with the Brotherhood or Order should fear being discovered for they will more than likely be sent to some black site.**

 **Codex: AetherNet**  
 **The AetherNet is the Empire's solution to a galaxy-wide network like how the galaxy the Emperor came back from had the holonet and the Citadel races have the extranet. The AetherNet consists of two layers which can overlap, the information layer and the neural layer. The information layer consists of all the data accumulated since humanity's progression into the technological age. Many different archives and live sites can be found and accessed by anyone in the Empire with a terminal, identically like the internet; although access to restricted sections are reserved for those they are intended for, like military networks. The data layer also allows for high-quality images, video, and holograms to be transmitted from one end of the Empire to the other without data loss. The neural layer is something else entirely. The concept of the neural layer was conceived by a neurologist who wanted to connect people's brains to the net to allow them to explore it. She was inspired by many sources but made her idea a reality. Currently the neural layer is used by many as an alternative to meeting in person or for doing social activities with business associates, friends, and loved ones on the other side of the Empire, or those who wish to indulge in guilty pleasures that they would never do in real life but would in a virtual space if they were given the chance to. There is a sect who wish to transfer their minds entirely into the neural layer of the AetherNet, giving up their physical bodies; however, this is currently illegal and those found to assist in attempts at this procedure are arrested and prosecuted. Those who wish to take part in the neural layer require either a headset or helmet device created by multitudes of hardware manufacturers or a direct neural link which is installed into a person's brain stem. Those who do use the neural layer can access data stored inside of the information layer, so long as they are authorized for that data. The AetherNet continues to be one of the Infinite Empire's crowning achievements.**

 **Codex:** _ **Sky of Khar'shan**_  
 **The** _ **Sky of Khar'shan**_ **is a unique Citadel-defined Dreadnought-class vessel. The warship is ten meters longer than the** _ **Destiny Ascension**_ **, the flagship of the Citadel Council, but much shorter and wider. This warship was constructed before Batarian-Citadel contact was established; therefore, it shares some similarities with some Citadel-defined Carriers and Battleships when taking into consideration the large hangar it has near the center-front of the bow where it can deploy fighter craft and board vessels small enough to fit inside, and it also has weaponry on it that would normally be found on some Destroyer-class vessels. The ship's main weaponry are the twin, side by side eezo powered railguns that run from a hundred meters from the stern of the ship all the way to the barrels' opening near the bow many decks above the roof of the hangar bay that can be fired individually or together like a double barreled shotgun. It is by far the oldest ship in the Hegemony's armory but is the most famous due to it being the first that the Batarians built. Due to its incredible age, it is constantly upgraded to meet the standards the rest of the galaxy has on its newer warships. It serves as the flagship of the Batarian Home Defense Fleet and even after the Imperial invasion and occupation serves now as a symbol of freedom rather than oppression. Retrofitting with Imperial weaponry and technology is slated to be done at an undisclosed time.**

 **Codex: Orbital Shipyards of Reach**  
 **The orbital shipyards of Reach are the pinnacle of structural engineering. The orbiting shipyard is a ring-like structure that is connected to the planet surface via multiple surface to space elevators along the ring's superstructure. These elevators provide both raw resources as well as workers to the station. Maglev trains line the ring allowing for quick transportation between mooring stations where there is a lack of elevators to ferry more personnel and resources. When moorings are not is use for building ships, they can be used as repair dry docks as well as resupply docks. The ring is held in a stationary orbit that is maintained by the space elevators as well as repulsorlift and tractor beam technologies to keep it in sync with the planet below.**

 **Codex: Imperial Terraforming**  
 **Terraforming has been a controversial topic in both Citadel politics as well as the Imperial Senate for as long as the concept has been around. The Citadel has yet to develop a reliable method to terraform planets to suit the needs of the species inside of it. However, the Empire has developed a method that originated with the terraforming of Mars. Seed Ships are sent out with scouts to explore potential planets and moons for colonization. The criteria are as such that there is no existing sentient life already upon it, has no life that will evolve at a future date, and isn't claimed by another entity. When these criteria have been met the Seed Ship moves into position and deploys a device called a "Star Seed". This device contains what can be described as a "milking device" that harnesses the Elixir of Life from one of the many Philosopher's Stones that the Emperor has in his possession to allow the Elixir to seep into the planet allowing it to develop ley lines at an exponentially quick rate allowing for soil to become fertile to allow plants and trees to be planted on the surface to allow for a breathable oxygen-rich atmosphere to come into being. Mass Time Dilation runic arrays are then activated allowing for a planet to develop its own breathable atmosphere in a few short years rather decades, centuries, or millennia. The arrays are remotely stopped occasionally to allow for a more controlled development where the Empire can make "designer" planets for many purposes for either straight-up colonization or for other purposes like mining.**

 **Codex:** _ **Sovereign**_ **-class Super Star Destroyer**  
 **The** _ **Sovereign**_ **-class Super Star Destroyer is the first Star Destroyer in the Imperial Navy to be truly considered a Dreadnought by their classification conventions while it (and the** _ **Resurgence**_ **-class) is considered a "super dreadnought" by the Citadel classification conventions. The first of her class is the aptly named** _ **Sovereign**_ **and serves as the Emperor's flagship and the primary weapon of the New Mandalore Defense Fleet stationed in the Sol system. They are ten thousand meters long, twelve hundred meters wide at its widest point, and five hundred tall from ventral hull to top of the command tower. It has well over four thousand turbolaser emplacements, forty heavy turbolaser emplacements on the lower and upper hulls, dozens of concussion missile launcher and proton torpedo launcher emplacements, and a single spinally mounted and internally housed superlaser. As of the "Batarian Liberation," only one had been constructed with seven more planned for construction with resources allocated for them.**

XxXxXxX

 **That's all I have for this time around. As you can see I added more Codex entries for new things I added as well as some for things I introduced last chapter but forgot to add Codex entries for because I finished the narrative but forgot the Codexes. I did make a minor edit to one Codex last chapter because of a specific vocal minority with super salt on him who couldn't have been bothered to put a name for me to reply to via PM because they didn't have the guts to defend their position other than a one-shot comment. Although, it did provide me a moment to defend my position, so thanks, unnamed guest! But before I rant and rave, even more, some notes for you guys.**

 **1\. Pemis Pramsoros is a batarian OC that I created. Depending on how you guys react to him, he may make another appearance later in the story.**

 **2\. I thought that logically there would be some that would treat their slaves more like indentured servants rather than true slaves and there would be others that treated them worse. In my mind, this made logical sense.**

 **3\. Before you ask yes, this is the same Ascension that is seen in the** _ **Stargate**_ **series, a series I love to death. If you want to see more** _ **Stargate**_ **let me know and I can figure out a way to make it happen. Plus, Harry also has an investment in this as well since there might be a day where he wishes to transcend his own mortality but can't die so this opens up another path for him as well.**

 **4\. Jacen Dvorak is another OC that I created as one of the Imperial Knights. Again, if his popularity is seen to be pretty big he might make another appearance later in part 3 or in the main series itself.**

 **5\. You can listen to that track here: (YouTube)** **watch?v=QF7ROkpzQ1c?t=5m**

 **6\. The inspiration for this vessel is the same that is seen in the cover art for this story. The ship visualization that is used was originally created by DeviantArt artist Vince-T. His version is a battlecruiser, but I wanted it to be a Super Star Destroyer. I am aware that this is not the Legends _Sovereign_ -class and this is intentional as I wanted to do my own thing for this vessel.**

 **7\. Listen here:** **(YouTube)** **watch?v=DO_RIzDTdEQ**

 **8\. Yes, this droid is the same type that PROXY was in the** _ **Star Wars: The Force Unleashed**_ **games. The droid serves the same purpose as well being a communications droid who can also serve as an assassin if need be.**

 **9\. Rilthyte T'eaara is an asari OC whom I created. I don't have an appearance for her yet so if you wish to make a suggestion for her before I actually make a decision whether to bring her back or not is up to you.**

 **10\. There is a reason for this as the** _ **Destiny Ascension**_ **is needed for the main** _ **Mass Effect**_ **storyline as it is Shepard who makes the decision on whether the Council should die or not. The Force led an unknowing Sparatus to make this decision. This also opens the obvious possibility of the Force touching other beings in the ME galaxy as well.**

 **11\. Listen here:** **(YouTube)** **watch?v=8zZ3vj9n0DQ?t=8m45s and if you still don't know what part of the Battle of Endor this is from, it's from when the Death Star fires on the unsuspecting Rebel Fleet.**

 **12\. Yes, this is Thane Krios in his younger years. And no, he won't have Kepral's Syndrome as the Empire has better medical care if the quarian immune system recovery is something that can be cured then Krepal's will be just as easy for them to cure.**

 **13\. The Voiceless Ones are a mercenary group that I created as a replacement for the Blue Suns as in this timeline/universe Zaeed did not create the Suns with his former partner Vido. As for what they'll be consisted of... I'll let you guys have a voice in that when I do figure out how they'll fit in the story as a whole.**

 **14\. As of now, the Avalon Project will remain very mysterious and no, I will not reveal details about it until I am ready to release them so any beginning of pleading will not make me release it quicker. When it is ready you will know about it.**

 **And now, like I promised replies to you guys' reviews, even though I said not to reply to the AN that I posted because those reviews would have been deleted. Seriously guys, I leave these instructions for a reason. But without further ado, replies.**

 **DLM4: Yeah, that tends to happen when doing world building and needing to provide enough details to know the world that everyone's living in. I don't know if I sent a PM to you but to your engines point: space magic BS, there's no other explanation.**

 **Alex2909: That was sort of the reason for it existing, haha.**

 **ShadeHeart676: Thanks for adding it :)**

 **Raven Marcus: Well the new _Sovereign_ -class I created sort of fills that role for now, but there's a possibility that the _Eclipse_ may appear in all of its massive glory.**

 **Penny is wise: Yes, and no. As I mentioned in the AN, in the beginning, I am doing this my own way since I want this to be different from the other Empire Building fics out there.**

 **NakedFury: I am still unsure if I am going to pair her up or not, however, it is a huge possibility.**

 **TheMysteriousOtaku: Hopefully you liked their reactions.**

 **Eljin1: Well, hopefully, you hear that voice once more.**

 **frankieu: If I didn't give credit then I would be plagiarizing, would I not?**

 **Keedra2173: Welcome to cliffhangers, haha.**

 **Joe Lawyer: Oh, I intend to when that does happen.**

 **sniper757: In many respects, you're right. Not many people can take the best of both series and make it work. I've seen many stories like mine just fall on their face while others succeed. I can't say why exactly that happens.**

 **neodova: Trust me, I have the same issues with British writers, I have to remember that some words use an s instead of a z at times.**

 **Guest who asked about the mask: I was originally going to explain it in the story but it didn't fit. The reason is to allow him to walk among his citizens and learn what is going on unfiltered as an unknown random person at a bar or on the street. This allows him to adjust resources as needed such as when crime shifts from one place to another and so on. To me, it makes sense in allowing him to see what life is like for his people. Plus, it makes him a smaller target when in public since most people just think he resides in his palace and in the Senate only. Most would think that he is very distanced, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Plus, being lied to for years by Dumbledore and his ilk makes him hate yes men and prefers a straight up and blunt approach. Being able to go out allows him to see things from an unbiased point of view. Hopefully, that answered your question.**

 **PocketDuelMonsters: This is why the OC contest exists. I may borrow from those series as well, but I want it to have my own spin on it instead of a copy and paste of them which makes it less meaningful to me.**

 **enji-benjy: I intend to complete this because I have an end goal at the end of the road. I try to disclaim what those marks are being used for at the beginning of the chapter to avoid confusion, but as you can see sometimes that always doesn't work. As for the paragraphs, sometimes they were too short when seen on FFN so I combined a shorter one with a slightly longer one. Not the best excuse, but it's the only one I got.**

 **Luke Dragneel: Huh, I must've missed that. But then again, I sort of copied it off of an image that didn't use much punctuation so I was sort of playing it by ear... or hand... whatever, you know what I mean. I'll go back when I get the chance and make the appropriate changes in punctuation. I also hated when people did that as well with complete absorption one way or the other. I see both the Force and magic as different applications of the same ethereal and mystical force and so far people seem to like it.**

 **almightyironman: Technically, yes, technically no. I mentioned this in a PM to you but all we know about the hanar is very little even from the sources that Bioware has given us. I figure more species make the universe feel bigger. With only humans, asari, salarians, turians, krogan, vorcha, and batarians (yhag could be included but there's so few of them left) and so many planets in the galaxy makes it feel smaller than it should. The Star Wars galaxy feels HUGE in comparison.**

 **Joeya12: You never know. If you see something that you think you can place your own spin on then I say go for it.**

 **woodzrox: It's a work in progress.**

 **Now onto the future of this story as a whole. When this 3-part prologue story is complete I will move on to creating the main story itself. That story will be focused on Shepard (Jane) and her adventure in taking down Saren. The primary events that happen in Mass Effect will still happen, but with a twist bringing familiarity as well as newness to it. That will take care of the first game. The second will have a different twist added to it that I won't say anything about yet because I do want it to be a surprise. The same for the third game, however, I can tell you that it will be the endgame of the entire trilogy of games where the Reapers will be defeated once and for all. After that? I have no idea. At this point in time, I'm planning on leaving an open ended ending where the main story is wrapped up but future stories could be possible using the same universe.**

 **Some might ask if I am going to expand into the Star Wars universe and wherein the canon it will take place. First, if this happens, it will be in the Legends canon and not the new Disney canon (although I am strongly debating on the events post-Battle of Endor and whether or not I'll use those events or not). As for the time frame, I was thinking around the time of either the Clone Wars or the Galactic Civil War. Again, as of now, I am unsure if I am even going to do to that or not at this moment so take that explanation with a small grain of salt.**

 **That's all I have to say for this chapter. I look forward to seeing you all in the third and final installment of this 3-part prologue. AGAIN, THIS IS A 3-PART PROLOGUE SO QUIT ASKING. See you guys in the final part of the prologue and have a happy and safe New Year.**

 **Edit (1/26/17): The OC species contest is now closed and the entries are being judged by me, please be patient. If you have sent a OC species to me, I have recieved it. If you wanted to send one in and were unable to, for whatever reason, I apologize but I will not be accepting any more entries as of this small update.**

 **Edit 2 (2/3/17): I will discuss any discrepancies involving the _Destiny Ascension_ in the next chapter. **


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